BS  538,7  .P52  1909 
Picton,  J.  Allanson  1832 

1910. 
Man  and  the  Bible 


MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 


MAN   AND  THE   BIBLE 

a/f  '^view  of  the  Vlace  of  the   "Bible 
in  Human   History 


BY 


iX 


J.   ALLANSON   PICTON,  M.A.  (Lond.) 

author  of 
"new  theories  and  the  old  faith,"     "the  mystery  of 

MATTER,"      "the    RELIGION    OF   THE    UNIVERSE," 
ETC.,      ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY    HOLT    AND     COMPANY 

LONDON  :  WILLIAMS  &  NORGATE 

1909 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

1.  THE    BIBLE    OF   OUR    FATHERS 

2.  THE    BIBLE    IN    PROTESTANT    AND    LOLLARD    TIMES 

3.  THE    BIBLE    IN    THE    LATER    MIDDLE    AGE    . 

4.  THE    BIBLE    IN    THE    DARKEST    AGE 

5.  THE    BIBLE    IN    THE    CHURCH's    SILVER    AGE 

6.  THE    BIBLE    AND    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIANITY 

7.  THE    BIBLE   AND    RELIGION 

8.  THE    BIBLE    AND    MORALS    . 

9.  THE    BIBLE    AND    SOCIAL    EVOLUTION 
10.    EPILOGUE  .... 


I 

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69 

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123 

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218 
268 

302 


MAN  AND  THE  BIBLE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE    BIBLE    OF    OUR    FATHERS 

Probably    no   lines   in    The    Cottars    Saturday   Night   so 
much  endeared  Scotland's  national  poet  to  his  country- 
men as  the  picture  of  the  family  gathering  around  the 
father-priest    of    the     household,    while,    with     bonnet 
reverently  doffed,  he  opens  the  "  big  ha'-Bible  "  before 
him  and  searches  the   sacred  pages   for   some  word    in 
season.     Nor  was  it  Scotland  only  that  vibrated  to  the 
touch  of  that  gifted  player  on  the  human  heart.     But 
throughout  the  western  world,  to  which  one  great  gift  of 
the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries   had   been  an  open 
Bible,  Burns'  description  of  family  worship  in  a  cottage- 
temple  kindled  emotions  of  remembrance  and  repentance 
in  the  hearts  of  all  who  read.     For  few  indeed  there  were, 
at  least  in  English-speaking  lands,  who  were  not  thereby 
reminded   of   the    most    sacred   moments   of   childhood, 
when  the  great   Book  was  laid   on  the   table  amidst  a 
hushed  group  of  children  and  servants  or  friends,  while 
the   father   or   grandfather,  in    unforgotten    tones,   read 
forth  the  Psalmist's  aspiration,  or  St  Paul's  conscience- 
compelling  words,  or  some  crystalline  simple  sayings  of 

I 


2  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

the  Lord  Jesus,  or  St  John's  fascinating  obscurity,  which 
stirred  even  where  it  did  not  teach. 

In  fine,  the  interest  and  power  of  those  verses  of 
Robert  Burns  depended  on  the  entirely  pecuHar  and 
unrivalled  place  held  by  the  Bible  in  the  hearts  of  a  very 
large  part  of  the  human  race.  Of  the  limitations  of  its 
kingdom  both  in  space  and  time,  it  will  be  inevitable 
that  we  should  hereafter  speak.  But  the  religious  history 
of  the  western  world,  and  especially  of  the  Britains — 
great  and  greater,  with  their  mighty  offspring,  the 
grandest  republic  known  to  history — is  more  than  enough 
to  justify  what  has  been  said.  Indeed,  to  this  reverent 
affection  of  whole  peoples  for  the  Bible  there  is  absolutely 
no  parallel  and  no  analogy  elsewhere.  For  it  would  be 
futile  to  compare  therewith  the  soldierly  respect  felt  by 
the  Mussulman  for  the  orders  given  him  by  his  Koran, 
or  the  mixture  of  literary  pedantry  and  mystic  aspiration 
with  which  the  Vedantist  or  Buddhist  scholar  studies  the 
ancient  lore  of  his  creed.  Of  the  moral  power  exercised, 
within  certain  limits,  by  old  eastern  scriptures  revealed 
in  latter  days  to  us  by  the  industry  of  great  scholars, 
there  need  be  no  question.  But,  for  reasons  far  other 
than  those  imagined  by  our  fathers,  the  Bible  has  found 
a  place  in  the  heart,  soul,  conscience,  and  affections  of 
common  men,  women,  and  children  of  the  west,  such  as 
no  Veda,  nor  Zend  Avesta,  nor  Chinese  classics,  nor 
Koran  ever  had  a  chance  of  attaining. 

For  it  is  not  principally  awe  nor  fear  which  is  felt 
toward  this  household  god,  "  the  Holy  Bible."  It  is 
rather  the  sort  of  reverence  in  which  gratitude  and 
affection  so  mingle  as  they  do  in  our  feeling  toward  a 
dear  friend,  too  great  to  be  questioned,  yet  too  familiar 
for  chill  respect.     Thus,  from  the  first  dawn  of  conscious- 


INFANTINE   MYSTICISM  3 

ness,  children  have  classed  it  with  the  sky  and  the  stars 
among  their  emerging  conceptions  of  things  great  and 
wonderful.  For  instance,  the  same  sort  of  infantine 
contemplation  which  regarded  the  stars  as  "  eyelet  holes 
to  let  through  the  glory  of  heaven/'  saw  in  the  Bible  a 
letter  from  God  to  tell  his  children  how  to  reach  that 
heaven.  To  suppose  that  an  understanding  of  the  sacred 
words  was  needed  to  excite  this  early  worship  would  be 
to  forget  our  own  early  childhood,  and  totally  to  mis- 
apprehend the  average  individual  course  of  mental  growth. 
For  who  among  the  departing  generation  does  not  re- 
member how  the  first  chapter  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  used 
to  be  considered  long  ago  as  peculiarly  fitted  for  infant 
reading  because  it  consists  so  largely  of  monosyllabic 
words  ?  Nor  was  the  venerable  chapter  without  spiritual 
influence,  incomprehensible  though  its  doctrine  was. 
Because  in  some  way  it  partly  lifted  a  veil  between  the 
little  everyday  world  of  the  child  and  "  the  immensities," 
of  which  the  vastness  of  ocean,  or  twinkling  stars,  or 
wonder  about  the  beginning  of  things  had  already  given 
some  hint. 

But  when  understanding  began  to  make  the  budding 
mind  more  articulate,  what  a  large  accession  of  interest — 
at  least  in  famiHes  like  that  of  Burns'  Cottar — did  the 
Bible  receive  from  a  desire  to  realise  how  the  wonderful 
events  related  therein  actually  occurred  ;  how  long  ago, 
in  what  order  of  succession,  how  the  detached  parts  could 
be  fitted  together,  and  how  variant  narratives  could  be 
pieced  into  one  harmonious  whole.  From  such  questions 
the  family  Bible  class,  an  institution  once  very  largely 
prevalent  on  Sunday  afternoons  among  the  excellent  of 
the  earth,  derived  much  of  its  innocent  excitement.  And 
many  whitebeards  cherish  still  the   stout,  plainly  bound 


4  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

little  Bible,  once  the  treasure  of  their  childhood,  where 
in  the  margins  are  still  legible  the  sprawling  pencilled 
figures  in  which  they  noted  the  exact  dates  of  creation, 
the  Deluge,  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  and  the  Exodus,  as 
they  were  announced  by  the  unimpeachable  authority  of 
the  priest-father.  To  that  sort  of  prehistoric  conscious- 
ness from  which  distinct  memory  gradually  dawns,  there 
was  no  suspicion  of  any  difficulty  about  the  two  variant 
accounts  of  creation  at  the  beginning  of  Genesis.  For 
what  could  be  clearer  than  that  the  second  chapter  takes 
up  in  detail  the  experiences  of  the  First  Man,  concerning 
whom  the  introductory  narrative  announces  with  solemn 
brevity  that  "  God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in  the 
image  of  God  created  he  him  "  ?  And  so  with  regard  to 
many  other  palpable  seams,  even  then  scrutinised  with 
microscopic  intensity  by  devotees  of  truth  in  far-away 
universities,  the  revered  pastor  of  the  British  church  in 
the  household  mentioned  them  only  to  excite  the  sort 
of  submissive  interest  proper  to  a  book  which,  being 
divine,  could  not  possibly  be  judged  according  to  any 
analogy  of  human  authorship.  In  like  manner  the 
attribution  of  precisely  the  same  matrimonial  troubles 
from  amorous  kings  to  both  Abraham  and  Isaac,  against 
which  both  father  and  son  are  said  to  have  tried  to  guard 
by  precisely  the  same  deceit ;  as  also  the  imperfectly 
combined  variant  traditions  of  the  Deluge,  together 
with  the  impossibilities  of  the  encounter  between  Moses 
and  Pharaoh,  excited  remark,  indeed,  or  wonder,  but 
not  incipient  criticism.  For  certainly  "  God's  book '' 
could  not  be  expected  to  be  as  other  books. 

Meanwhile,  the  holy  or  the  venerated  beings  who 
moved  majestically  upon  the  stage  of  this  old  world 
drama,  though  unrealisable  in  any  sense  that  could  bring 


SPIRITUAL   DAY-DREAMS  5 

them  into  discord  with  fact,  were  yet  imaginable  enough 
to  touch  the  affections  and  to  people  the  fairyland  of 
day-dreams.  Thus  how  many  a  child  was  innocently 
daring  enough  to  think  of  God  as  his  own  greater  Father  ! 
"  He  that  dwelleth  in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High 
shall  abide  under  the  shadow  of  the  Almighty."  To 
such  biblical  words  as  these  many  a  sensitive  child  would 
give  a  literal  interpretation  little  suspected  by  his  in- 
structors. In  his  day-dreams  he  lived  in  God's  palace, 
beneath  God's  eye,  within  sound  of  God's  voice.  There 
were  around  the  sacred  domain  green  meadows  and  blue 
sea,  and  grottoes  and  caves  echoing  with  the  splash  of 
water,  all  for  the  child's  pleasure.  And  he  had  them 
because  he  loved  God,  and  God  loved  him.  What  God 
forbade,  he  would  not  do.  No  prohibited  fruit  would 
he  take.  Into  no  closed,  mysterious  avenues  would  he 
peer.  And  this  from  no  fear  of  the  all-seeing  eye,  but 
from  eager  loyalty  of  soul.  Yet  so  large  was  the  liberty 
in  God's  palace,  where  the  child's  day-dreams  ranged,  that 
duty  was  never  thought  of  as  a  fetter.  Indeed,  without 
knowing  it,  he  anticipated  later  studies  which  showed 
that  "  where  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty." 

Strange  that  it  was  so  much  more  easy  to  be  familiar 
with  God  than  with  Abraham,  or  Isaac,  or  Jacob  !  But 
so  it  was.  These  were  sacred  heroes  indeed,  who  must 
have  been  good — even  Jacob — because  they  were  so 
much  favoured  by  God.  But  though  it  was,  of  course, 
all  right,  still  the  child  rather  shrank  from  an  earthly 
father  who  was  so  ready  to  slay  and  burn  "  his  son,  his 
only  son."  David,  however,  the  man  "after  God's  own 
heart,"  was  very  much  after  the  child's  heart  too.  In 
fact,  as  portrayed  to  us  in  Hebrew  tradition,  there  was 
a  good  deal  of  the  boy  about  him,  in  his  eagerness,  in 


6  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

his  inconsequence,  in  his  adventurousness,  in  his  senti- 
mental friendship,  in  his  inconsistent  notions  of  fairplay, 
exhibited  in  fits  of  bullying  and  chivalry.  Besides,  there 
was  so  much  action  in  David^s  career  as  to  keep  the  boy's 
interest  constantly  alert.  For  the  giant-killer,  the  Jewish 
Robin  Hood,  the  bold  climber  from  the  sheepfold  to 
the  throne,  was,  even  from  a  secular  point  of  view— had 
that  been  conceivable  then — as  attractive  as  Whittington 
or  Robinson  Crusoe.  But  when  this  romantic  interest 
was  suffused  with  the  glory  of  the  Psalms,  nearly  all  of 
which  David  was  supposed  to  have  chanted  to  his  harp, 
the  result  was  a  royal  saint,  consecrated  by  tradition, 
authority,  religion,  and  music  to  childish  hero-worship. 

Such  reminiscences  of  a  bygone  generation  will  not  be 
found  useless  to  our  study  of  the  relations  of  Man  and 
the  Bible.  But  time  and  space  would  fail  us  to  tell  in 
detail  of  the  wonderland  in  which  vaguely  conceived 
kings  and  prophets  glimmered  in  "  a  light  that  never  was 
on  land  or  sea "  ;  how  Solomon's  abominations  were 
ignored  in  recitations  of  his  youthful  vision  and  his 
admirable  choice  of  understanding  as  better  than  gold  ; 
how  the  pious  little  Abijah  was  almost  envied,  blessed  as 
he  was  with  an  early  death  "  because  in  him  was  found 
some  good  thing  toward  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  in  the 
house  of  Jeroboam "  ;  how  Isaiah's  broken  music  was 
transfigured  under  instruction  into  a  premature  gospel  ; 
and  how  isolated  passages  from  unintelligible  later 
prophets  were  made  applicable  to  the  joys  and  sorrows  of 
family  life,  nay,  to  the  successes  or  disappointments  of 
the  classroom,  and  even  the  provocations  of  the  play- 
ground. "  yf //  thy  children  shall  he  taught  of  God;  and 
great  shall  he  the  peace  of  thy  children^  ^     Why,  naturally 

^  Is.  liv.  13. 


FAMILIARITY   WITHOUT   IRREVERENCE    7 

such  a  promise  was  the  very  word  of  God  to  the  priest- 
father  expounding  the  passage,  though,  of  course,  the 
peace  must  be  conditional.  "  He  that  toucheth  you  toucheth 
the  apple  of  his  eye''  The  child  whose  first  consciousness 
of  religion  had  been  the  day-dream  of  dwelling  in  the 
palace  of  God  felt  no  presumption  in  taking  to  himself 
such  a  comfortable  assurance  of  divine  defence.  "  The 
Lord  thy  God  in  the  midst  of  thee  is  mighty  ;  he  will  save  ; 
he  will  rejoice  over  thee  with  joy ^  he  will  rest  in  his  love^  he 
will  joy  over  thee  with  singing''  What  earthly  father 
could  have  more  tenderness,  and  what  earthly  father 
possessed  such  power  to  make  that  tenderness  triumph- 
ant ?  Thus,  in  his  half-awakened  intelligence,  the  child 
might  with  full  heart  join  in  singing  of  his  Bible  : — 

"  'Tis  a  broad  land  of  wealth  unknown, 
Where  springs  of  life  arise  ; 
Seeds  of  immortal  bliss  are  sown 
And  hidden  glory  lies." 

Or  if  from  sacred  legend,  psalm,  and  prophecy  he  was 
led  to  the  feet  of  the  earthly  trinity — child,  woman,  and 
man  in  one — the  Christ  whose  glory  dominated  the  Old 
Testament  no  less  than  the  New,  the  child  had  nothing 
to  unlearn.  For  this  human  God  was  the  God  he  had 
always  known  in  his  day-dreams  ;  and  the  only  shade  of 
sadness  in  his  feeling  toward  the  gospels  was  a  touch  of 
envy  toward  those  long-ago  children  who  were  actually 
held  in  God's  arms.  As  to  the  crucifixion,  it  was  not 
realised  as  a  cruel,  agonising  death.  It  was  part  of  the 
golden  legend,  necessary — the  child-mind  did  not  ask 
why — to  consummate  the  loving  work  of  the  human 
God,  and  take  his  erring  children  back  to  heaven.  The 
subtleties  of  theology  had  not  yet  troubled  the  simplicity 


8  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

that  looked  through  the  innocent  eyes.  Jesus  was  God, 
and  God  was  Jesus.  And  therefore  all  the  dark  sayings 
of  the  Old  Testament,  over  which  the  child  so  strangely 
loved  to  pore,  mnst  needs  have  the  same  meaning  as  the 
words  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  The  two  records  of  divine 
utterance  differed  only  as  the  music  of  a  marching  band 
jangled  by  multiple  echoes  among  dark  defiles  of  savage 
rocks,  differs  from  the  same  music  when  it  issues  into 
the  open  plain. 

But  then  at  last  came  a  time  when  the  boy's  Bible  was 
no  longer  a  realm  of  day-dreams.  For  understanding 
and  conscience,  ripening  fast,  became  susceptible  to 
obscure  but  fearful  issues  of  salvation  or  perdition. 
Not  that  the  Book  alone  would  have  pressed  such 
questions,  at  least  in  the  form  in  which  they  began  to 
trouble  the  growing  soul.  For,  left  to  itself,  the  opening 
mind  would  still  have  interpreted  St  Paul  by  the  loving 
kindness  of  the  great  Father  in  whose  palace  the  infant 
had  passed  such  happy  days.  No  harm  could  come, 
either  in  this  world  or  any  other,  to  one  who  was  on  such 
terms  with  God,  and  had  no  thought  but  to  do  God's 
will.  But  the  growing  soul  was  not  left  to  its  own 
communings  with  the  Father.  For  preachers  and 
Sunday-school  teachers,  and  even  parents,  were  much 
concerned  about  its  "  conversion,"  and  earnestly  unfolded 
the  "plan  of  salvation"  in  such  a  manner  that  they 
inadvertently  turned  it  into  a  plan  of  damnation.  "  By 
nature  we  are  all  children  of  wrath,"  said  they  ;  "  and 
unless  this  primal  curse  inherited  from  Adam  be  cancelled 
by  repentance  and  by  our  appropriation  through  faith  of 
the  atoning  sacrifice  of  Christ,  there  is  no  hope  for  us, 
but  only  a  certain  looking  for  of  judgment  and  fiery 
indignation."       And    the     still    sensitive    boy,    who    re- 


THE    BIBLE   AND   THE   WAKING   SOUL    9 

membered,  though  he  could  not  renew,  his  infant  day- 
dreams, was  often  warned,  especially  by  "  revivalist " 
preachers,  that  "  it  is  a  fearful  thing  to  fall  into  the  hands 
of  the  living  God."  Such  an  aspect  of  God  had  never 
presented  itself  to  the  dawning  religious  consciousness 
of  childhood.  But  the  youth  who  had  begun  to  learn 
grammar,  nay,  even  a  little  Greek,  saw  with  a  shock  that 
such  words  really  stood  in  his  beloved  Bible.  And  he 
yielded  to  the  exhortations  which  besought  him  to  "  flee 
from  the  wrath  to  come." 

How  he  wished  such  a  flight  were  as  easy  as  that  of 
Christian  from  the  City  of  Destruction  !  For  with  him 
the  Pilgrim  s  Progress  was  only  second  to  the  Bible  in  his 
affections.  And  though  his  understanding  could  not 
quite  clearly  discern  between  an  allegory  and  a  historic 
fact,  such  as  he  supposed  Abraham's  pilgrimage  from  Ur 
of  the  Chaldees  to  be,  still  he  cherished  the  wish  that  this 
fleeing  from  the  wrath  to  come  could  take  such  an 
outward  and  visible  form  as  the  words  suggested.  And 
here  he  and  his  companions  in  sport  or  study  went  apart 
on  divers  spiritual  progresses,  all  with  the  same  heavenly 
goal  in  view,  but  passing  through  sharply  contrasted 
experiences.  Because  some  were  taught  that  they  had 
already  been  regenerated  in  baptism,  and  they  received 
the  comfortable  and  reasonable  assurance  that  they  were 
already  the  children  of  God  and  inheritors  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  All,  therefore,  that  they  had  to  do  was  to 
take  now  upon  themselves  the  holy  vows  formerly  made 
on  their  behalf  by  their  sponsors,  to  become  proficient 
in  the  formularies  of  the  Church,  to  receive  confirmation 
at  the  hands  of  a  consecrated  bishop,  to  enter  into  closer 
communion  through  the  Eucharist  with  the  ever-living 
Christ,  and  loyally  to  observe  his  precepts. 


lo  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

This  was  not  a  little.  But  it  was  light  as  air  compared 
with  the  burden  laid  on  less  fortunate  friends.  For 
some  of  these  latter,  in  the  nervous  excitement  of 
"  revival "  seasons,  felt,  in  a  sense  never  dreamed  of  by 
the  Psalmist,  that  "  the  terrors  of  hell  gat  hold  upon  " 
them.  I  do  not  suppose  that  the  Psalmist  quoted  was 
ever  afraid  to  go  to  sleep  lest  he  should  wake  up  in  the 
flaming  company  of  Satan  and  his  angels.  Indeed,  it 
does  not  'require  much  Hebrew  scholarship,  or  perhaps 
not  any,  to  preclude  such  a  notion  as  that.  But  such  was 
not  unfrequently  the  fate  of  youthful  "anxious  inquirers" 
who  were  struggling  for  an  assurance  of  conversion  and 
salvation.  And  as  this  spiritual  nightmare  denatured 
heaven  and  earth,  so  it  deformed  the  Book  treated  by  the 
child  as  "  God's  letter,"  which  had  kindled  endless  sweet 
fancies  and  hopes.  For  the  young  victims  of  the  belief  in 
an  everlasting  hell  scanned  the  Bible  now  as  a  book  of 
charms,  amongst  which  the  right  formula  of  deliverance 
must  at  last  be  found.  They  prayed  till  they  fell  asleep 
on  their  knees,  and  wakened  to  bemoan  their  "  hardness  of 
heart."  Till,  at  last,  under  some  Pentecostal  whirlwind  of 
"  revival "  excitement  in  a  crowded  chapel,  a  mysterious 
convulsion  seized  them.  They  were  almost  torn  like  the 
demoniac  from  whom  a  peculiarly  obstinate  devil  was 
cast  out.  But  when  it  was  over,  they  felt  themselves  in 
heaven,  and  shouted  "  glory,  glory,"  in  eager  response 
to  the  saints  bending  over  them.^  In  some  cases,  perhaps 
in  most,  the  beatification  was  not  eternal.  Still,  only 
prejudice  would  deny  that  there  were  a  certain  number 

^  Few  readers  can  remember,  as  I  can,  the  earlier  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  But  if  they  think  such  scenes  as  the  above  unreal,  let  them 
refer  to  any  accessible  accounts  of  the  Welsh  revival  in  so  recent  a  year 
as  1905. 


VARIETIES   OF   SPIRITUAL   EXPERIENCE    ii 

of  cases  in  which  such  strange  experiences  proved  to  be  a 
real  salvation,  so  far  as  we  can  judge  by  this  present  life. 

Then  there  were  others  again  who  found  comfort 
neither  in  the  ecclesiastical  fold  nor  in  ecstatic  conversion. 
For  family  tradition  excluded  them  from  the  one,  and 
temperament,  including  perhaps  a  difficulty  in  self- 
deception,  denied  them  relief  from  the  latter.  However 
much  they  tried,  they  found  they  could  not  repent  of 
Adam's  sin,  though  they  heartily  condemned  it.  And 
though  they  were  quite  sure  they  had  sins  enough  of 
their  own,  they  could  not  feel  them  drop  off  as  the 
pilgrim  Christian  did  at  the  sight  of  the  Cross.  To  such 
it  happened  that  pastors  or  chapel  officials,  anxious  to  add 
them  to  "  the  Church,"  suggested  that  conversion  need 
not  always  be  instantaneous  like  St  Paul's  ;  and  that  the 
Ethiopian  eunuch  underwent  no  terrors  nor  excitement 
before  his  conversion,  but  only  experienced  a  new  light 
on  the  Scriptures,  with  which  he  was  already  familiar.  In 
such  a  way  were  satisfied  many  candidates  for  church 
membership  among  Nonconformists  ;  and  they  received 
"  the  right  hand  of  fellowship  "  without  ever  having  been 
converted  at  all.     Perhaps  they  did  not  need  it. 

But  one  and  all  who  entered,  whether  through  church 
or  chapel  door,  on  the  self-conscious  Christian  life,  felt  it 
to  be  one  of  their  holiest  privileges  to  magnify  "  the  word 
of  God  "  in  season  and  sometimes  out  of  season,  as  the 
exponent  of  the  plan  of  salvation,  the  foundation  of  right, 
the  sanction  of  the  moral  law,  the  charter  of  their 
country's  greatness,  the  bond  of  social  order,  the  con- 
secration of  the  family,  the  only  essential  in  education, 
the  most  blessed  treasure  God  had  given  to  man.  Of 
this  pathetic  devotion  the  institution  of  family  worship, 
already  discussed,  is  the  most  interesting  instance  ;  and  by 


12  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

all  unprejudiced  minds,  whatever  their  creed  or  lack  of 
creed,  will  be  allowed  to  have  been  fruitful  in  culture  of 
morals  and  of  the  emotions.  True,  the  reading  of  the 
Bible  was  only  a  part  of  this  cult.  But  every  priest- 
father  would  have  emphatically  protested  that,  compared 
with  the  divine  word,  his  own  feeble  utterances  in  prayer, 
or  even  those  consecrated  by  his  church,  were  but  as  the 
chaff  to  the  wheat.  Also  "  professing  Christians "  to 
whom  the  right  of  private  judgment  was  precious — or,  as 
they  would  have  preferred  to  put  it,  the  privilege  of 
personal  guidance  by  the  Holy  Ghost — esteemed  it  both 
a  duty  and  a  joy  to  search  the  Scriptures  for  themselves. 

How  great  was  the  consolation  found  by  the  tearful 
mother,  in  parting  from  her  boy  called  to  some  far-off 
adventure  by  sea  or  land,  when  he  gave  her  his  word  that 
no  day  should  pass  without  the  reading  of  some  portion 
of  the  pocket  Bible  affectionately  inscribed  with  his  name, 
and  forming  her  last  best  gift  !  For  it  was  not  merely 
as  a  moral  chart  of  life  that  she  regarded  it,  or  as  a 
repository  of  wisdom.  Of  such  there  were  many  in 
modern  literature,  and  most  of  them  framed  on  what 
were  thought  to  be  biblical  lines.  But  though  they 
might  contain  the  very  essence  of  holy  writ,  no  pious 
mother  would  have  been  satisfied  that  her  boy  should 
have  substituted  any  of  these  for  the  Bible.  For,  after 
all,  these  were  human  works,  and  the  Bible  was  not. 
It  was  God's  letter  to  mankind,  if  not  traced  with  his 
finger  —  a  distinction  reserved  for  the  Ten  Command- 
ments alone — at  least  dictated  by  his  Spirit  to  holy  men 
of  old,  who  wrote  not  their  own  words  but  God's.  It  was 
this  afflatus  of  divinity,  breathing  the  very  life  of  God 
into  the  words,  that  made  it  so  utterly  different  from  any 
other  book,  not  only  in  degree  but  in  kind.     And  be  it 


SANCTA   SIMPLICITAS  13 

remembered  that  the  cruel  discernment  of  German  critics 
had  not  yet  reached,  even  as  a  rumour  of  horror,  the 
ordinary  Bible  devotees  of  that  generation.  Though 
how  mere  common-sense  could  have  missed  the  obvious 
suggestions  in  the  text  itself  of  a  gradual  and  natural 
evolution  of  Bible  religion,  has  been  in  later  life  a  puzzle 
to  not  a  few  of  those  devotees  themselves.  But  so  it 
was.  The  average  Bible  worshipper,  Protestant  though 
he  was,  had  not  even  heard  of  Luther's  irreverent  sneers 
at  the  Epistle  of  St  James,  or  of  Calvin's  sparks  of 
rationalism,  or  of  John  Knox's  doubts  whether  James 
and  John  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  when  they 
counselled  St  Paul  to  deceive  the  Jews  by  an  occasional 
conformity  to  the  Mosaic  Law. 

In  this  section  of  the  present  treatise  we  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  changes  of  opinion  which  have  of  late  years 
to  some  extent  rationalised  veneration  for  the  Bible. 
Those  changes  will  receive  attention  in  due  course.  But 
meantime  I  am  dealing  only  with  the  popular  idea  of  a 
book  dictated  by  God,  and  therefore  capable  of  exerting  a 
beneficent  influence  not  merely  by  its  truth  or  wisdom 
or  appeals  to  the  affections,  but  by  the  miraculous  and 
inexplicable  power  that  words  dictated  by  God  must 
needs  possess.  Instances  of  this  fond  confidence  in  mere 
sacred  words,  as  though  they  were  incantations  or  charms, 
may  still  be  seen  in  some  railway-station  waiting-rooms, 
where  detached  verses  from  the  Bible  are  hung  up  by 
pious  enthusiasts  in  the  hope  that  a  hurried  glance  may 
prove  to  be  the  salvation  of  a  soul.  Yet  such  words 
often  have  no  rational  meaning  apart  from  the  context. 
As  for  instance,  "  Except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise 
perish  ; "  where  the  word  "  likewise "  is  sufficient  to 
suggest  the  incompleteness  of  the  passage.     And  the  few 


14  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

who  care  by  memory  or  reference  to  verify  the  quotation, 
find  that  the  context  thus  arbitrarily  ignored  has  nothing 
to  say  about  the  end  of  the  world,  or  about  the  judgment- 
day  and  perdition,  but  deals  only  with  the  coming  fate  of 
a  sanctimonious  and  hypocritical  nation.  Moreover,  they 
were  not  originally  spoken  of  such  toilworn  wayfarers  as 
those  who  rest  for  a  bad  quarter  of  an  hour  in  a  railway 
waiting-room,  but  of  precisely  such  pious  zealots  and 
fanatics  as  those  who  hang  up  threatening  texts,  to  the 
terror  of  the  weary. 

But  many  superstitions  have  an  amiable  side  ;  and  this 
has  certainly  been  true  of  bibliolatry.  For  both  in  public 
movements,  in  social  progress,  and  in  private  self-culture 
of  humblest  souls,  the  notion  of  a  divine  book,  through 
which  God  in  very  deed  does  daily  talk  to  men,  has  given 
to  human  affairs  an  impulse  which,  though  far  from 
infallible,  and  sometimes  distorted  both  by  ecclesiastics 
and  fanatics  to  cruel  purposes,  has  on  the  whole  stimulated 
the  pursuit  of  a  moral  ideal  higher  than  that  of  each 
successive  generation  of  readers.  Reserving,  then,  for 
later  pages  any  criticism  of  the  influence  exerted  by  the 
Bible  in  public  life,  I  desire  here  to  dwell  for  a  little  on 
the  sort  of  quickening  influence  exerted  by  the  habit  of 
Bible-reading  among  the  dim  millions  who  make  up  the 
mass  of  the  people.  For  it  was  the  one  book  accessible 
to  them  which  seemed  to  bring  them  under  the  shadow 
of  the  Almighty,  and  within  the  sweep  of  eternity.  And 
most  of  those  whose  memory  goes  back  to  the  earlier 
part  of  the  last  century  can  recall  the  solemn  or  pathetic, 
and — as  must  be  confessed — sometimes  ludicrous,  use 
made  of  scriptural  texts  in  the  little  vicissitudes  of  family 
life. 

Such  survivors  of  a  bygone  time  will  remember  how  it 


THE   PATHETIC   SIDE   OF   SIMPLICITY    15 

was  the  custom  of  many  an  afflicted  one  in  humble  life, 
when  confronted  with  bereavement,  loss,  or  persecution 
for  conscience'  sake,  to  kneel  before  the  open  Bible  as 
before  a  sacred  shrine,  and  to  gather  comfort,  strength, 
and  courage  by  alternating  prayer  with  the  reading  of 
"  the  promises."  Indeed,  one  case  I  remember  in  which 
the  bigotry  of  Christian  brethren  concerning  microscopic 
points  of  doctrine,  or  alleged  "want  of  unction,"  or  I 
know  not  what,  so  tortured  their  minister  that  he,  poor 
soul,  thus  kneeling,  read  through  the  story  of  Christ's 
sufferings  for  him,  seeking  thus  to  put  to  shame  the 
cowardly  weakness  lurking  within  the  carnal  man.  And 
with  what  power  came  to  him  then  the  words  of  the 
epistle :  "  For  even  hereunto  were  ye  called,  because 
Christ  also  suffered  for  us,  leaving  us  an  example  that 
ye  should  follow  his  steps  "  !  True,  in  those  days  the 
alternative  to  hypocrisy  could  not  be  the  stake  nor  the 
gallows.  But  loss  of  livelihood  and  misery  to  a  family 
was  to  a  loving  father  almost  worse. 

But  the  worship  of  the  Bible  by  the  unknown  many 
was  not  always  so  noble  as  this.  One  venerable  elder 
I  remember,  who  always,  on  the  morning  of  his  departure 
from  any  family  he  had  been  visiting,  would  solemnly 
read  at  household  worship  the  twentieth  Psalm,  which 
superficially  seemed  appropriate  enough.  For  it  was 
pleasing  to  hear  what  sounded  like  a  paternal  blessing  : 
"  The  Lord  hear  thee  in  the  day  of  trouble  ;  the  name 
of  the  God  of  Jacob  defend  thee."  But  when  God  was 
asked  to  "  remember  all  the  burnt  offerings  "  of  that  family 
and  to  "  accept  their  burnt  sacrifice,"  the  application  was  not 
obvious.  And  even  if  this  were  explained  by  a  reference 
to  deeds  of  self-denial,  the  succeeding  verses  about  setting 
up  banners  and  the  overthrow  of  an  enemy  by  a  warrior 


1 6  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

king  should  have  made  it  plain,  even  to  readers  of  the 
English  version,  that  the  psalm  was  originally  a  sort  of 
Hebrew  "  God  save  the  King,"  only  much  more  grandly- 
expressed  than  the  doggerel  that  satisfies  us.  Now  when 
plain  English  could  so  effectively  conceal  meaning,  other 
and  worse  distortions  of  Scripture  were  sure  to  follow. 
And  so  I  remember  how  the  same  venerable  elder,  in 
reading  Psalm  ciii.,  paused  after  the  words,  "  He  will  not 
always  chide,  neither  will  he  keep  his  anger  for  ever,"  to 
expound  the  words  as  meaning  that  the  Lord  will  not  always 
limit  himself  to  chiding,  but  will  take  much  more  decisive 
measures  ;  nor  will  he  much  longer  keep  back  his  anger, 
but  will  launch  his  thunderbolts  of  wrath. 

From  our  point  of  view,  the  mediaeval  Church  was 
wholly  wrong  in  denying  to  its  humblest  members  free 
access  to  the  Bible.  But  it  would  be  mere  bigotry  on 
our  part  to  deny  that  the  Scriptures  are  very  liable  to 
misinterpretation  by  ignorance,  or  that  the  communion  of 
the  unlettered  man  with  his  Bible  is  often  a  strange 
medley  of  the  sublime  and  the  grotesque.  Perhaps  I 
cannot  better  illustrate  this  than  by  quoting  the  medita- 
tions of  a  Bible-reading  old  man  whom  I  knew  in  my 
earliest  years,  and  who  had  no  other  literature,  unless 
religious  tracts  and  magazines  can  be  so  called.  But, 
humble  and  ignorant  as  he  was,  his  lucubrations  are  to 
me  very  noteworthy  in  considering  the  relations  of  the 
Bible  and  the  People. 

The  Bible  I  have  before  me  belonged  to  a  journeyman 
house-painter,  Thomas  Dickinson  by  name,  who  has  long 
ago  joined  the  "  choir  invisible."  For  it  is  fifty-eight 
years  since,  as  a  boy,  I  made  his  acquaintance,  and  he  was 
an  old  man  then.  He  had  no  education  beyond  the 
attainments    of    reading    and   writing,    with    the    barest 


THOMAS   DICKINSON 


17 


rudiments  of  arithmetic.  He  had  been  converted  in 
middle  age  at  some  Methodist  "  revival."  But  for  some 
reason  he  preferred  to  attend  an  Independent  chapel,  into 
which  he  endeavoured,  with  much  disappointment  to 
himself,  to  infuse  something  of  Wesleyan  fire.  Notwith- 
standing his  age,  his  religious  fervour  and  resonant 
utterance,  whether  in  prayer  or  exhortation,  were  such  as 
to  win  for  him  amongst  us  the  epithet  "  Boanerges." 
And  when  the  dear  pastor,  possessing  the  culture  of  a 
Scottish  university,  had  finished  a  correct  sermon,  unim- 
peachable in  doctrine,  but  too  like  Isaiah's  idol  "with 
no  breath  at  all  in  the  midst  of  it,"  how  would  the  old 
zealot  exclaim,  on  leaving  the  chapel  gates,  "  It's  n  use 
a  dilly-dallyin'  a  this  road  !  And  sowls  perishin'  all  the 
time  !  " 

But  such  anecdotes  are  only  intended  to  suggest  what 
manner  of  man  he  was  whose  Bible  I  have  before  me. 
For  if,  through  fervour  of  temperament  and  some  original 
though  untrained  capacity,  he  was  slightly  different  from 
the  average  man  in  the  street,  yet  his  childlike  belief  in 
the  Bible  as  "  God's  letter  to  mankind,"  and  his  accept- 
ance of  every  word  of  the  English  version,  from  Genesis 
to  Revelation,  as  on  an  equal  level  of  infallible  inspiration, 
exactly  represented  the  religion  of  the  multitude  in  his 
day.  It  is  in  this  view  that  the  observations  of  the  old 
man  inscribed  on  the  margins  of  his  Bible  appear  to  me 
interesting  and  suggestive. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  nearly  all  the  marginal  comments 
and  affectionate  markings  of  favourite  passages  are 
confined  to  the  Old  Testament.  Nor  is  this  to  be 
explained  by  the  death  of  the  devout  reader  before  his 
systematic  study  was  ended.  For  there  are  clear 
evidences  of  careful  attention  to  the  New  Testament  as 


1 8  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

well.  Indeed,  at  the  top  of  the  first  page  of  St  Matthew's 
gospel  are  written  these  uncouth  lines,  whether  quoted 
or  original  I  cannot  tell  : — 

"  Oh  !   when  can  I  that  form  behold 
Which  hung  for  me  upon  the  cross  ? 
I  heed  not  gems  nor  pearls  nor  gold  " — 

a  sufficient  testimony  at  any  rate  that  the  gospels  were 
not  undervalued.  Was  it  a  survival  of  Cromwellian 
Puritanism,  this  curious  partiality  for  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  ?  I  think  not.  I  believe  it  rather  originated 
in  a  sort  of  intellectual  pleasure  which  was  found  in 
discovering  amid  the  obscurities  of  the  Old  Testament 
sparks  of  Gospel  light.  Take  the  following  words  (Deut. 
X.  7)  :  "And  from  thence  they  journeyed  unto  Gudgodah  ; 
and  from  Gudgodah  to  Jotbath,  a  land  of  rivers  of 
waters."  What  spiritual  application  seems  possible  to 
this  obscure  fragment  of  a  lost  itinerary  ?  ^  The  modern 
culture  of  the  Scottish  university  minister  would  have 
disdained  to  attempt  it.  But  the  humble  house-painter 
saw  it  at  once.  "  At  conversion  " — so  he  writes  in  the 
margin  of  his  Bible  ;  and  I  think  it  better  to  keep  the 
spelling — "the  siner  begins  an  important  jurney.  He 
leaves  a  state  wherein  are  no  watersprings  of  divine 
influences  to  jurney  in  the  land  of  uprightness,  a  land 
of  rivers  of  waters.  And  further  as  he  jurneys  in  this 
land  the  wider  and  deeper  does  theese  rivers  flow."  But 
the  determination  to  read  the  New  Testament  into  the 
Old  is  not  always  shown  in  this  poetic  guise.  The  some- 
what stolid  assumption  that  every  word  of  the  Hebrew 
records  had  an  outlook  toward  the  wonder  days  of  Galilee, 
Calvary,  and  Bethany  is  seen  in  a  singular  preface 
^  See  Encyc.  Biblica,  s.v.  Gudgodah. 


AN  UNLETTERED  PURITAN'S  "HAGAD AH"  19 

scribbled  at  the  top  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  The 
special  reference  is  to  the  words  once  quoted  by  a  pagan 
philosopher  as  an  instance  of  literary  sublimity  :  "  And 
God  said,  Let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light."  But, 
with  perhaps  pardonable  unsusceptibility  to  literary  form, 
the  pious  house-painter  reflected  thus  : — 

"  The  moral  world  is  without  all  Spiritual  form  ;  it  has 
no  resemblance  to  the  glorious  image  of  its  Creator  ;  and  it 
is  void,  completely  void  of  all  Spiritual  life,  light,  order,  and 
beauty,  and  will  remain  so  until  the  Spirit  of  God  moveth 
upon  it  in  his  new  creative  energies.  When  God  saith  to 
an  individual,  to  a  famly,  to  a  community,  to  a  woreld  lying 
in  chains  of  darkness,  '  let  there  be  light,'  then  there  is  light ; 
the  darkness  passeth  away,  and  the  true  heavenly  glorious 
light  shineth  into  multitudes  of  Souls." 

The  old  man  had  apparently  never  reached  the  stage  of 
mental  development  at  which  perplexity  is  caused  by  the 
contrast  between  the  facility  of  such  a  method  of  salvation 
and  the  infrequency  of  its  application.  On  the  contrary, 
the  darker  aspects  of  mediaeval  theology,  if  they  did  not 
yield  a  grim  sort  of  pleasure,  were  at  any  rate  not  wholly 
repugnant  to  this  late  representative  of  stern  Puritan  faith. 
A  gloomy  comment  follows  on  the  wail  of  Cain  that  his 
punishment  is  greater  than  he  can  bear  :  "  The  punish- 
ment of  lost  souls  in  hell  will  be  greate  ;  but  the  (they) 
shall  be  able  to  bear  it."  By  which  I  understand  that  my 
old  friend  would  not  have  tolerated  the  annihilation  theory 
which  came  into  vogue  some  years  after  his  death.  But 
we  may  find  relief  in  the  childlike  note  on  the  threat  to 
the  serpent  of  the  woe  to  be  wrought  on  him  by  the 
woman's  descendants — a  threat  which  hardly  needs  any 
theological   interpretation  :     "  This    is    the    first    gospel 


20  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

sermon  ever  preached,  and  God  was  the  preacher."  And 
the  benevolence  which  could  coexist  with  belief  in  a 
physical  hell,  that  tortured  without  destroying,  is  manifest 
in  a  prayer  breathed  after  reading  of  the  entry  of  Noah 
with  his  belongings  into  the  ark  :  "  Hasten  the  day,  O 
Lord,  when  heads  of  families  and  all  their  offspring  shall 
enter  into  the  Ark  of  thy  salvation,  even  Christ  Jesus  !  " 
Yet  his  notions  of  that  divine  mercy  to  which  he  prayed 
were  certainly  paradoxical  ;  for  on  God's  rejection  of  the 
intercession  of  Moses,  "  Let  me  alone  that  I  may  destroy 
them,"  the  comment  is  :  "  O,  if  God's  people  where  to 
let  him  alone,  if  the  where  to  cease  to  interceed  for  siners, 
what  sore  and  sudden  misry  would  come  upon  them  ! 
If  so,  how  much  is  the  world  of  the  unregenerate  indebted 
to  the  godly, — despise  and  hate  them  as  they  may  !  "  The 
prosaic  geographical  enumeration  of  territories  given  in 
Deut.  iv.,  ending  with  "  all  the  plain  on  this  side  Jordan 
eastward,  even  unto  the  sea  of  the  plain  under  the  springs 
of  Pisgah,"  occasions  the  following  outburst  : — 

"  About  the  springs  of  the  earthly  Pisgah  I  know  nothing, 
but  of  Christian's  Pisgah,  blessed  be  God,  I  know  something 
— the  are  soul  refreshing  Springs,  Soul  transforming  Springs, 
Soul  gladdening  and  Soul  ravishing  Springs — Haste  my  soul 
up  Pisgah's  mount  and  view  the  promised  land." 

Very  much  that  is  said  in  Mr  Prothero's  interesting 
story  of  "  The  Psalms  in  Human  Life  "  receives  humble 
though  not  on  that  account  the  less  striking  illustration 
from  this  poor  man's  Bible.  For  there  is  no  book  in  the 
volume  more  scored  or  annotated  than  the  Psalms. 
Little  could  the  singer  of  Psalm  ciii.,  whoever  he  was, 
foresee,  when  he  chanted  "  thy  youth  is  renewed  like  the 
eagle's,"  that  after  more  than  two  millenniums  had  flown 


AN   EAGLE   FLIGHT  21 

he  would  draw  such  a  rhapsody  as  this  from  an  obscure 
house-painter,  born  in  a  then  inconceivable  world  : — 

"  May  my  flights  be  like  unto  the  eagle's  ;  may  my 
strength  be  like  unto  the  eagle's  ;  then  I  shall  at  all  times 
mount  very  high  in  the  holy  atmosphere  of  sweet  communion 
with  God,  even  above  the  clouds  and  dwell  near  the  throne, 
while  my  body  lies  grovelHng  here  below.  This  is  my 
privilege,  and  this  will  shurly  be  my  portion  and  experience 
if  I  seek  for  it  and  live  for  it  ;  for  I  have  the  promise  of 
God,  and  He  cannot  He." 

It  is  an  interesting  illustration  of  what  the  title  "  word  of 
God,"  as  applied  to  the  Bible,  meant  to  the  "  man  in  the 
street,"  that  a  poetic  figure  of  a  Hebrew  poet  is  accepted 
as  a  definite  and  palpable  promise  of  God. 

Lastly,  a  very  noteworthy  feature  of  these  records  is  a 
total  insensibility  to  any  literary  beauties  in  the  sacred 
book.  One  of  the  most  intensely  interesting  and  beauti- 
ful personalities  of  the  present  age,  Miss  Helen  Keller,  of 
Alabama,  who,  though  blind  and  deaf  from  two  years  old, 
became  a  collegian,  a  graduate  with  honours,  and  a  con- 
siderable scholar,  writes  in  the  story  of  her  life  that  in 
her  second  year  at  Radcliffe  College  she  began  to  study 
"  the  Bible  as  English  literature."  A  strange  description, 
surely,  for  a  collection  of  translations  from  Hebrew  and 
Hellenistic  works.  But  herein  Miss  Keller  only  follows 
the  fashion  prevalent  on  this  side  of  the  ocean.  For  when 
every  other  plea  for  the  use  in  unsectarian  schools  of  a 
book  which  in  the  present  state  of  opinion  must  needs  be 
sectarian  has  been  silenced,  we  are  told  that  the  Bible  is 
an  "  English  classic,"  and  as  such  must  be  included  in 
national  education.  Well,  it  is  quite  possible  that  if  the 
late  Professor  Jowett's  advice  could  be  taken,  and  the 
Bible  be  "  treated  like  any  other  book,"  cultivated  teachers 


22  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

might  arouse  the  interest  at  least  of  children  in  their  teens 
in  the  unconscious  majesty  of  some  parts  of  the  Bible,  in 
the  imperishable  human  interest  of  others,  in  the  more 
laboured  but  lofty  poetry  of  Job,  in  the  harp-like  music 
of  Isaiah,  and  in  the  incomparable  narrative  style  of  the 
gospels. 

But  the  insuperable  difficulty  in  the  way  is  the  stubborn 
fact  that  at  present  the  Bible  cannot  be  "  treated  like  any 
other  book,"  but  that  its  miraculous  claims  always  pre- 
dominate over  its  literary  interest.  Indeed,  so  far  is 
this  the  case  that,  apart  from  certain  incipient  efforts  to 
rationalise  veneration  for  the  Bible,  efforts  quite  outside 
our  purview  in  this  chapter,  the  man  in  the  street  feels 
towards  his  "  book  divine  "  precisely  as  did  the  venerable 
zealot  whose  notes  I  have  quoted.  And  how  utterly  in- 
susceptible he  was  to  any  thrill  of  literary  interest  in  the 
Scriptures  is  well  seen  in  his  treatment  of  the  hundred  and 
fourth  Psalm,  a  survey  of  Nature  which  even  in  these  days 
of  scientific  revelation  still  makes  the  heart  glow  with  the 
vision  of  a  physical  beauty  and  wonder  instinct  with  a  soul 
of  goodness.  But  for  Thomas  Dickinson,  the  psalmist's 
picture  of  the  perennial  resurrection  of  the  Spring — 
"  Thou  sendest  forth  thy  Spirit,  they  are  created  ;  and 
thou  renewest  the  face  of  the  earth  " — had  only  a  theo- 
logical value  : — 

"When  God  sendeth  his  Spirit  upon  siners  they  are 
created  anew  in  Christ  Jesus  unto  good  works  ;  and  in  pro- 
portion as  he  doth  this,  in  that  proportion  is  the  face  of  the 
moral  earth  renewed  in  righteousness  and  holiness.  Where 
the  Spirit  comes  there  is  hfe,  light,  and  fruitfulness." 

I  have  thought  it  worth  while  to  dwell  at  some  length 
on  what  seems  to  me  a  typical  instance  of  popular  Bible 


THE   BIBLE   SOCIETY  23 

religion  as  existing  within  the  lifetime  of  the  last  genera- 
tion. Because  though,  in  some  respects,  the  man  I  have 
quoted  was  exceptional,  substantially  he  represents  the 
attitude  of  the  million  toward  the  Bible  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  Indeed,  for  reasons  which  we  shall  presently 
consider,  that  century  was  the  very  earliest  period  in 
which  such  a  relation  between  the  Bible  and  the  people 
was  possible.  For  never  before  had  that  collection  of 
sacred  traditions  been  made  fully  and  unreservedly 
accessible  to  uncultured  faith.  And  the  chief  cause  of 
the  amazing  popularisation  of  the  Bible  in  the  course  of 
the  nineteenth  century  is  well  worth  consideration. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  gift  of  the  Bible  to  the 
"common  people,"  the  successors  of  those  who  heard 
Christ  gladly,  has  been  mainly  the  work  of  the  British 
and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  whose  story  has  been  told 
in  centenary  memorials  of  that  Society's  achievements. 

To  religious  Wales  was  due  the  first  inception  of  the 
idea.  For  the  Reverend  Thomas  Charles  of  Bala  having 
in  1802  solicited  help  from  the  Religious  Tract  Society 
toward  increasing  the  supply  of  Welsh  Bibles — of  which 
there  would  seem  to  have  been  a  great  dearth  at  that 
time — the  Reverend  Joseph  Hughes,  a  Baptist  minister  of 
Battersea,  being  present,  responded  thus  :  "  Surely  a 
society  might  be  formed  for  the  purpose.  But  if  for 
Wales,  why  not  for  the  kingdom  ?  Why  not  for  the 
whole  world  .'^ "  ^ 

These  words,  spoken  in  the  counting-house  of  a  godly 
and  prosperous  merchant  at  Old  Swan  Stairs,  were  as 
seed  falling  into  good  ground.  For  two  years  afterwards, 
in  1 804,  the  Society  was  organised  which,  though  by  no 
means  the  first  of  its  kind,  certainly  in  the  abundance  of 
1  The  Story  of  the  Bible  Society^  by  Wm.  Canton,  p.  3. 


24  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

its  labours  and  achievements  exceeded  all  others  put 
together.  For  1  suppose  there  is  hardly  a  language  spoken 
anywhere  on  the  round  world  by  half  a  million  people 
into  which  this  Society  has  not  translated  "  the  word  of 
God."  And  even  dying  dialects  spoken  only  by  the 
remnants  of  once  numerous  tribes,  now  nearly  ex- 
terminated by  Christian  guns,  alcohol,  and  disease,  possess 
in  requital  at  least  this  sacred  lore,  said  to  be  the  secret 
of  our  imperial  might.  Nay,  some  extinct  languages 
now  possess  their  only  record  in  the  library  of  the  Bible 
Society.  For  though  the  Society  has  only  within  two 
years  celebrated  the  centenary  of  its  birth,  it  has  lived 
long  enough  to  see  not  a  few  wild  tribes  to  whom  it 
addressed  the  gospel  of  salvation  perish  to  the  last  man 
before  the  superior  prowess  of  Christian  civilisation, 
which  finds  its  divine  charter  in  the  same  heavenly 
message. 

But  no  such  paradoxical  events  delayed  for  one 
moment  the  printing  activities  of  the  great  Society.  For 
if  the  Word  could  but  reach  the  last  dying  remnants  of  a 
disappearing  clan,  no  one  could  tell  but  that  the  charm 
of  the  sacred  syllables  might  be  the  means  of  snatching 
one  and  another  precious  soul  as  brands  from  the  burn- 
ing. As  compared  with  such  a  result,  what  mattered 
expenditure  of  money  ?  Sceptical  critics  of  the  history 
of  revelation  might  hint  that  the  same  Supreme  Author 
who  had  communicated  the  message  to  a  little  group  of 
clans  in  Judaea  of  old,  and  to  their  descendants  in  Galilee 
and  Jerusalem,  could  easily  have  dispensed  with  the  aid 
of  the  Bible  Society  by  communicating  directly  with  his 
heathen  children  said  to  be  perishing  for  lack  of  know- 
ledge. But  such  criticism,  of  course,  ignored  one  essential 
feature  of  the  plan  of  salvation,  which  was,  that  after  God 


POPULARITY   AND    SUCCESS 


25 


had  done  his  part,  man  should  do  the  rest.  For,  as  St  Paul 
says,  the  progress  is  from  "  faith  to  faith,"  from  one 
glowing  heart  to  another  ready  to  be  kindled.  Or,  as  he 
says  in  another  place,  "  How  shall  they  call  on  him  in 
whom  they  have  not  believed  ^  And  how  shall  they 
believe  in  him  of  whom  they  have  not  heard  ?  And  how 
shall  they  hear  without  a  preacher  ? "  True,  this  slow 
process  of  communication  from  soul  to  soul  necessarily 
incurred  risks  awful  to  contemplate  in  the  light  of  the 
then  prevalent  doctrine  of  an  everlasting  hell.  But  those 
things  belonged  to  the  secret  things  reserved  for  the 
counsels  of  the  Eternal,  of  which  no  mortal  should  dare 
to  judge. 

The  British  public  is  always  open-hearted  toward  any 
forms  of  human  need  appealing  to  family  experience  of 
hunger,  sickness,  or  bereavement.  Hence  the  facility 
with  which  enormous  sums  have  been  raised  for  soup 
kitchens,  destitute  children's  dinners,  hospitals,  and 
orphan  homes.  But  the  need  to  which  the  Bible  Society 
ministered  did  not  come  within  any  of  these  categories. 
Nevertheless  it  touched  the  hearts  of  precisely  that  part  of 
the  public  best  able  to  furnish  the  sinews  of  this  holy  war. 
For  it  appealed  to  prosperous  families  who,  every  morn- 
ing and  evening,  gave  God  thanks  that  they  had  been 
brought  up  on  the  "  sincere  milk  of  the  word  "  ;  and  to 
successful  merchants  who  had  found  godliness  profitable 
unto  all  things  ;  and  to  self-made  men  who  attributed 
all  their  success  in  life  to  their  early  acquaintance  with 
God's  Word  through  the  lessons  of  the  Sunday  school. 
Not  less  it  appealed  to  the  congregations  of  the  poor  who 
crowded  big  chapels  Sunday  by  Sunday  to  hear  some 
heart-searching  preacher  draw  from  the  sacred  book 
before  him  a  mystical  wisdom  such  as  no  human  under- 


26  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

standing  could  have  devised.  And  deep  was  the  emotion 
of  the  hearers  when  such  a  preacher  pictured  the  misery 
of  those  lands  where  there  was  a  famine,  "  not  of  bread, 
nor  a  thirst  for  water,  but  of  hearing  the  words  of  the 
Lord."  To  the  myriads  who  day  by  day  lived  "  not  by 
bread  alone  but  by  every  word  which  proceedeth  out  of 
the  mouth  of  God,"  such  a  famine  seemed  more  deadly 
than  any  dearth  of  bodily  food,  because  it  threatened  not 
merely  temporal  death,  but  an  eternity  of  woe.  And  so 
it  came  to  pass  that  the  Bible  Society  moved  the  soul 
of  a  people  not  less  deeply  than  did  orphanages  and 
hospitals.  For  the  mood  in  which  its  appeals  were  heard 
was  susceptible  to  no  practical  doubts  as  to  the  number 
of  readers  among  the  heathen  Eskimo,  or  the  Kalmucks, 
or  the  Swahili.  But  as  the  old-fashioned  husbandman 
took  his  chance  when  he  flung  out  handfuls  of  seed  upon 
ill-prepared  ground,  so  the  enthusiast  of  the  Bible  Society 
rejoiced  to  think  of  the  tons  and  even  shiploads  of  Bibles 
in  outlandish  tongues, — miraculous  books  to  be  scattered 
as  living  seed,  in  full  confidence  of  a  harvest  from  heathen 
ground.  For  had  not  God  himself  declared  concerning 
his  word,  "  it  shall  not  return  unto  me  void,  but  it  shall 
accomplish  the  thing  which  I  please,  and  it  shall  prosper 
in  the  thing  whereto  I  sent  it  "  ? 

This  united  fervour  of  all  sects  was  no  doubt  much 
fostered  and  maintained  by  the  prudent  rule  of  the 
Society  adopted  from  the  very  beginning,  that  the  copies 
of  the  Bible  circulated  should  be  wholly  "  without  note 
or  comment."  Though,  by  the  way,  this  did  not  exclude 
marginal  references,  which  often  form  significant  notes, 
and  even  at  times  amount  to  comment.  But  of  course 
comparison  of  scripture  with  scripture  could  only  make 
for    truth  ;   and  therefore  no  good  Christian  could  fear 


"THE   BULWARK   OF   PROTESTANTISM'*  27 

that  by  subscribing  for  his  dozen  or  score  or  thousands 
of  Bibles  he  was  in  any  way  favouring  the  peculiar 
tenets  of  any  misguided  brethren.  Indeed,  so  much 
was  co-operation  promoted  by  this  rule,  that,  contrary  to 
the  prejudiced  belief  still  prevalent  in  Protestant  circles, 
and  in  spite  of  the  hesitation  or  even  aversion  of  one  or 
two  popes,  Roman  Catholic  priests  have  been  known  to 
lend  ready  help  to  the  dissemination  of  the  Society's 
Erse  and  Gaelic  translations  among  their  Irish  and  High- 
land flocks.^ 

Nevertheless,  to  the  Bible  Society  has  often  been  attri- 
buted such  doubtful  success  as  has  attended  British 
resistance  to  "  papal  aggressions "  during  the  last  two 
generations.  "For,"  says  Mr  Canton,  "when  principles 
of  the  Reformation  were  threatened  ;  when  momentous 
questions  which  had  slept  for  ages  were  reopened  ;  when 
claims  long  held  in  abeyance  were  pressed  with  startling 
boldness  and  importunity,  there  was  roused,  by  some 
mysterious  stimulus,  so  urgent  a  Bible  movement  in  the 
great  towns,  that  in  three  years  from  April  1844  to  March 
1847  there  were  distributed  1,900,776  copies  of  that 
book  which  must  form  the  only  standard  of  appeal."^ 
Not  only  so,  but  to  this  tidal  wave  of  Bibles  was  attri- 
buted even  the  outwardly  and  apparently  successful 
opposition  to  the  Chartist  demonstration  of  April  10, 
1848.  For  "  the  Reverend  Hugh  Stowell  declared  that 
only  a  working  clergyman  could  tell  how  much  we  owed, 
not  to  the  promptitude  of  the  magistracy,  not  to  the  wise 
and  timely  measures  of  the  government, — these  he  be- 


^  Story  of  the  Bible  Society^  p.  29. 

2  Observe  that  the  unsectarianism  of  the  great  Society,  like  the  "  un- 
denominationahsm  "  of  "  simple  Bible  teaching,"  retains  immovably  the 
fundamental  dogma  of  the  miraculous  and  supreme  authority  of  the  book. 


2  8  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

lieved  would  have  been  insufficient  to  keep  the  people, 
under  the  pressure  of  their  sore  distress,  calm,  tranquil, 
submissive, — it  was  the  Bible  Society  that  had  done  it."  ^ 
Now  the  Reverend  Hugh  Stowell,  though  a  distinguished 
clergyman,  was  not  one  of  the  "  goodly  fellowship  of  the 
prophets  "  ;  and  he  could  hardly  be  expected  to  foresee 
that  within  a  generation  almost  every  demand  of  the 
Chartists  except  "  annual  parliaments "  would  be  practi- 
cally conceded.  Still  less  could  he  foresee  that  while 
aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of  Israel  would  make  it 
one  of  their  taunts  against  the  Bible  that  it  kept  the 
people  "submissive,"  wiser  interpreters  of  the  sacred 
volume  would  find  in  it  a  perpetual  charter  of  popular 
revolt  against  public  wrong. 

Another  strange  feature  of  this  interesting  but  in 
some  respects  paradoxical  story  is  its  oblivion  of  the 
Bible's  comparative  failure  to  provoke  the  rich  and  ruling 
classes  to  reform  abuses,  though,  as  we  have  seen,  it 
inspired  the  poor  with  patience  to  bear  them.  Not  that 
we  forget  the  fine  philanthropy  of  such  Christian  men  as 
Clarkson  and  Wilberforce,  or,  later,  of  the  good  Lord 
Shaftesbury.  But  we  cannot  help  observing  that  the 
reforming  zeal  of  such  excellent  men  was  excited  either 
by  flagrant  horrors  of  oppression  in  distant  parts  of  the 
earth,  or  by  special  and  extreme  symptoms  of  the  disease 
and  distortion  of  our  home  civilisation,  such  as  the 
atrocious  system  of  chimney-sweeping  by  climbing  boys. 
But  the  root  of  these  evils  in  the  preposterous  dispropor- 
tion between  the  numbers  wielding  political  power  and 
those  suffering  the  woes  caused  by  its  misuse  was  either 
entirely  overlooked  by  the  directors  of  "  law  and  order  *' 
or  its  importance  was  minimised.  Nay,  the  few  who 
^  Quoted  by  Mr  Canton  in  the  Story  of  the  Bible  Society^  p.  105. 


A   PARADOX  29 

doubted  the  perfection  of  our  "  glorious  constitution  in 
Church  and  State  "  were  regarded  as  dangerous  characters  ; 
and  survivors  from  the  former  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  can  well  remember  how  "  radicals,  socialists,  and 
infidels "  were  lumped  together  as  enemies  of  God  and 
the  Bible. 

During  the  terrible  years  before  the  Reform  Bill,  when 
our  country,  under  the  sway  of  Bible-reading  bishops, 
peers,  and  squires,  was  subject  to  the  tortures  of  insane 
protection  and  tremendous  internal  taxation,  the  broad- 
cast scattering  of  the  Scriptures  by  the  Bible  Society  is 
credited  by  its  historian  with  the  pathetic  patience  of  the 
people  under  their  wrongs.^  Yet  the  thought  will  occur 
that  if,  as  we  learn,  583,880  copies  of  the  Scriptures  were 
circulated  by  the  Society  in  1831,  mainly  among  the  poor, 
the  rich  who  ruled  were  in  no  need  of  such  spiritual 
alms.  For  there  was  not  a  hall  or  mansion  which  did 
not  show  a  Bible  in  nearly  every  room.  And  the 
dwellers  in  these  "  stately  homes  of  England  "  learned 
from  their  Bible  lessons  much  about  the  obedience  of 
the  subject,  about  the  divinely  ordained  perpetuity  of 
poverty,  and  about  the  sacredness  of  the  social  hierarchy. 
Such  lessons  confirmed  their  determination,  in  the  interest 
of  the  existing  state  of  things,  to  forbid  the  importation 
of  foreign  or  even  Irish  cattle,  to  lay  heavy  duties  on  the 
poor  man's  bread,  to  tax  salt  up  to  four  times  its  value, 
and  to  limit  light  and  air  in  the  cottage  by  a  window  tax. 
The  religion  of  these  Church  and  State  men  was,  as  far 
as  it  went,  not  less  genuine  than  that  of  the  Directors 
of  the  Bible  Society,  of  which  indeed  these  Church  and 

^  Op.  cit.^  pp.  103-4.  One  can  hardly  repress  the  now  useless  prayer — 
Would  to  God  they  had  been  less  patient !  Their  children  and  grand- 
children would  have  been  all  the  better  off. 


30  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

State  men  were  very  generally  patrons.  They  learned 
from  their  Scriptures,  according  to  an  orthodox  interpreta- 
tion, to  "  bind  heavy  burdens  and  grievous  to  be  borne, 
and  to  lay  them  on  men's  shoulders."  And  then  we  are 
told  that  it  was  mainly  the  blessed  influence  of  this  same 
Bible  which  kept  the  oppressed  and  miserable  people 
quiescent  under  their  woes.  This  is  no  reproach  to  that 
venerable  book,  in  which  are  stored  up  so  many  preg- 
nant but  not  always  consistent  utterances  of  hard-won 
human  experience.  But  it  is  distinctly  a  reduction  to 
absurdity  of  the  superstitious  notion  that  the  Bible, 
wherever  we  open  it,  gives  us  the  very  voice  of  God. 

That,  however,  was  the  idea  of  the  Bible  which  prevailed 
among  nine-tenths  of  the  population  down  to  the  last 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.  This  was  shown  not 
only  by  the  prevalent  faith  in  miracles  of  conversion  to 
be  wrought  by  mere  dissemination  of  the  sacred  Book 
"  without  note  or  comment,"  but  also  by  the  general  and 
almost  universal  custom  of  regarding  a  plain  text  from 
any  part  of  the  Bible  as  an  end  of  all  controversy  on 
almost  any  subject  whatever.  Thus,  in  the  days  when 
factories  and  workshops  gave  much  more  opportunity  to 
workmen  for  conversation  and  debate  than  is  possible 
now,  a  quotation  from  Law,  Prophets,  Psalms,  or  New 
Testament,  if  it  seemed  to  bear  upon  the  point  in  dispute, 
whether  temperance,  socialism,  republicanism,  or  fraternity 
and  equality,  would  rarely  or  never  be  met  by  a  denial  of 
its  divine  authority.^  The  only  resource  for  the  dis- 
putants against  whom  such  a  quotation  appeared  to  tell 
was  to  produce  other  texts  which  might  modify  it,  or  to 

^  This  is  matter  of  early  personal  experience  and  observation.  For, 
though  I  never  was  myself  a  factory  hand,  I  was  in  very  close  contact 
with  workmen  for  thirty  years. 


DEGRADATION   OF  THE   BIBLE  31 

throw  doubt  on  the  correctness  of  the  translation,  which 
reminiscences  of  Bible  classes  enabled  even  unlearned 
workmen  to  do. 

And  though  amongst  the  more  learned  clergy  and  the 
cultured  laity  this  notion  of  the  Bible  as  being  in  every 
part  the  very  word  of  God  has  been  superseded  by  a 
more  liberal,  but  more  hazy  conception,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  this  degradation  of  these  ancient  books  into  a 
fetish  has  had  much  to  do  with  the  difficulties  of  national 
education,  not  only  at  home,  but  in  every  nominally 
Christian  country.  For  what  can  be  more  unfair  and 
injurious  to  any  record  of  human  experience  than  the 
practice  of  reading  it  to  inexperienced  children  "  without 
note  or  comment,"  as  in  the  common  schools  of  America  ? 
Or  what  can  be  more  redolent  of  weak  and  timorous  faith 
than  the  clamorous  insistence  of  our  sects  that  the  State 
shall  not,  dare  not,  leave  the  Church  to  do  its  own  work 
in  its  own  way,  but  that,  in  addition  to  Church  services, 
Sunday-school  teaching  and  Bible  classes,  the  State  must 
needs  dose  children  with  "  Bible  and  water "  ^  in  every 
day-school .'' 

^^ Exitus  ergo  quis  est?''  What  is  the  plain,  practical 
result  of  enterprises  and  organisations  based  on  the  belief 
that  the  Bible  is  a  miraculous  book,  the  very  word  of 
God,  with  wonder-working  power  within  itself  to  convert 
untaught  heathen,  and  to  ensure  high  morality  in  any 
population  imbued  with  its  lore  from  childhood  ^  Neither 
the  question  nor  the  answer  of  palpable  facts  can  cast  the 
least  reproach  upon  the  real  Bible  as  a  most  precious 
record  of  our  main  line  of  religious  evolution.  For  its 
value  in  this  respect  is  not  here  doubted.     But  the  point 

1  A  (phrase  of  the  first   Sir  Thomas   Fowell  Buxton  in  reference  to 
platitudinarian  expositions  of  Scripture. 


32  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

is,  that  the  very  foundation  of  the  Bible  Society  was  a 
belief  that  the  "  Word  of  God,  without  note  or  comment," 
could  work  its  way  by  a  sort  of  miracle.  You  had  only 
to  send  out  to  heathen  lands  a  sufficient  number  of  tons 
of  the  wonder-working  book,  and  whole  populations  would 
be  brought  over  to  the  faith  of  Christ.  Accordingly,  at 
the  meetings  of  the  Society,  many  pathetic  stories  were 
told  of  American  Indians,  African  Negroes,  and  Hindoos 
and  Dravidians  who  besieged  the  distributors  of  the  book, 
and  who  met,  when  and  how  they  could,  like  the 
primitive  Christians,  to  hear  a  slightly  lettered  fellow- 
tribesman  spell  out  the  divine  message.  Considering  the 
monotony  of  primitive  life,  and  its  natural  eagerness  to 
hear  "some  new  thing,"  such  excitement  is  entirely 
credible  and  readily  conceived.  But  the  inference  inevit- 
ably drawn  by  the  hearers  of  these  stories  of  Bible 
triumphs,  that  the  mere  multiplication  of  the  printed 
Scriptures  was  rapidly  converting  the  world,  has  scarcely 
been  justified  by  officially  published  facts. 
-  For  the  first  census  of  the  British  empire  issued  at  the 
beginning  of  March  1906  from  the  General  Register 
Office  gives  the  numbers  of  the  king's  subjects  of  all 
races  and  religions  as  more  than  300  millions.  And  of 
these  only  58  millions  are  registered  as  Christians,  includ- 
ing the  42  millions  or  so  in  the  United  Kingdom  and 
European  dependencies.  It  is  true  that  no  religious 
census  has  for  many  years  been  taken  in  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland.  But,  with  a  generous  liberality,  this  imperial 
census  puts  us  all  down  as  Christians  at  home.  Canada, 
South  Africa,  New  Zealand,  and  Australia  contain  many 
millions  of  American,  Dutch,  or  Anglican  Christians  ;  and 
if  to  these  be  added  the  white  official  class  and  men  of 
business  in  India,  the  16  million  imperial  Christians  out- 


IMPERIAL   CENSUS   OF   RELIGIONS       33 

side  Europe  are  practically  accounted  for,  so  that  the  con- 
verted heathen  within  an  empire  covering,  as  we  are  told, 
one-fifth  of  the  land  surface  of  the  globe,  can  only  be  a 
few  hundreds  of  thousands.  On  the  other  hand,  the  same 
official  record  tells  us  that  there  are  208  millions  adhering 
to  Hindu  forms  of  religion,  94  millions  of  Mahommedans, 
12  millions  of  Buddhists,  besides  23  millions  of  various 
pagan  and  non-christian  religions.  In  other  words,  after 
a  century  of  Bible  scattering  and  more  laborious  missions, 
the  Christians  within  the  empire,  even  reckoning  in  the 
long-established  Christianity  of  the  home  countries,  are 
less  than  one-fifth  of  its  total  population. 

"  And  is  this  little  all  that  was  to  be  ? 
Where  is  the  gloriously  decisive  change, 
The  immeasurable  metamorphosis 
Of  human  clay  to  divine  gold,  we  looked 
Should  in  some  poor  sort  justify  the  price  ? 
Had  a  mere  adept  of  the  Rosy  Cross 
Spent  his  life  to  consummate  the  Great  Work, 
Would  not  we  start  to  see  the  stuff  it  touched 
Yield  not  a  grain  more  than  the  vulgar  got 
By  the  old  smelting  process  years  ago  !  " 

Nay,  but  in  this  instance  the  "  old  smelting  process," 
if  so  we  may  call  the  struggle  and  martyrdom  of  the  first 
hundred  years  after  Pentecost,  achieved  moral  and  religious 
conquests  which  utterly  put  to  shame  the  trivial  gains  of 
Christianity  within  the  latest  hundred  years.  For  though,  of 
course,  no  statistics  are  available,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  by  a.d.  130  or  140  the  Church  had  taken  such  a  firm 
hold  of  Asia  Minor,^  Greece,  Egypt,  Italy,  and  North  Africa, 
that  its  final  victory  was  practically  assured,  and,  as  the 

1  See  Pliny's  well-known  letter  to  Trajan. 

3 


34  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

devout  would  have  put  it,  "  the  gates  of  hell  could  not 
prevail  against  it."  And  this  moral  triumph  was  achieved 
without  organised  missions,  without  Bible  Societies,  nay, 
without  Bibles,  except  indeed  the  Septuagint,  and  frag- 
ments of  the  gradually  evolved  New  Testament,  of  which 
the  different  portions  were  variously  esteemed,  and 
perhaps  none  had  any  established  authority.  But  then  in 
those  days  the  Gospel  was  a  new  leaven  working  mightily 
in  the  mass  of  human  affections,  hopes,  fears,  and  aspira- 
tions, all  matured  to  just  that  stage  of  preparation  to 
which  the  Gospel  solution  of  the  mystery  of  life  was 
adapted.  The  case  is  not  so  now.  And  that  is  one  of 
the  facts  we  have  to  weigh  and  appreciate  in  discussing 
the  relations  of  Man  and  the  Bible.-^ 

The  result  of  our  survey  hitherto,  then,  is  that  the 
ubiquity  of  the  Bible  as  a  household  treasure  in  Protestant 
countries,  and  its  unchallenged  supremacy  in  the  affections 
and  veneration  of  the  common  people,  have  been  ex- 
ceptionally characteristic  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
are  largely  owing  to  the  zeal,  liberality,  and  devotion  of 
the  greatest  of  Bible  Societies.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
must,  of  course,  be  acknowledged  that  the  marvellous 
success  of  that  Society  implies  a  predisposition  on  the 
part  of  the  public  to  favour  its  work.  Such  a  pre- 
disposition is  also  evidence  that,  to  use  a  Gospel  simile, 

^  If  it  should  be  asked  why  the  success  of  missionary  and  Bible  Society 
operations  outside  the  British  empire  is  not  estimated,  the  answer  is  that 
equally  authoritative  statistics  are  not  available.  But  if  to  the  one-fifth  of 
the  solid  earth  covered  by  the  empire  we  add  the  enormous  area  of  the 
United  States  and  Russia,  there  is  really  very  little  room  left  in  which  to 
redress  the  failure  above  quoted.  The  romantic  story  of  Christianity  in 
Madagascar  has  been  familiar  from  childhood,  and  is  profoundly  stirring. 
But  what  is  that,  or  the  tale  of  the  South  Sea  Islands,  to  balance  the 
portentous  failure  of  Christian  missions  to  touch  more  than  a  fringe  of 
the  enormous  and  dense  population  of  China.'* 


NINETEENTH   CENTURY   EXCEPTIONAL  35 

"  the  fields  were  already  white  unto  the  harvest."  For, 
though  not  so  accessible  and  familiar  as  it  is  now,  the 
Bible  had  been  for  centuries  universally  venerated  and 
recognised  in  all  Christian  countries  as  an  infallible 
authority,  not  only  on  faith  and  morals,  but  also  on 
cosmogony,  Jewish  history,  and  the  mission  of  Christ  and 
his  apostles.^  But  obviously  the  position  of  the  sacred 
volume  during  an  entirely  exceptional  period  of  Protes- 
tant organisations  is  not  a  broad  enough  basis  for  any 
impartial  judgment  on  the  worth  of  the  Bible  to  the 
whole  world.  For  the  formation  of  such  a  judgment,  the 
outlook  of  the  future  must  be  considered  as  well  as  the 
retrospect  of  the  past  ;  and  there  are  unmistakable  signs 
that  even  in  Protestant  countries  such  authority  as  the 
Book  may  hereafter  retain  will  depend  much  more  on  its 
power  to  inspire,  and  much  less  on  the  tradition  of  its 
miraculous  origin,  than  has  ever  been  the  case  before. 
And  even  as  regards  past  times,  the  most  superficial 
glance  at  history  shows  that  during  the  greater  part  of 
the  Christian  era  the  imperfections  of  popular  culture, 
the  cost  of  books,  and  also  the  attitude  of  the  Church 
made  absolutely  impossible  such  a  position  as  the  Bible 
has  held  in  the  hearts  of  the  Protestant  peoples  during 
the  last  century.  Therefore,  those  who  wish  to  form  a 
reasonable  estimate  of  the  worth  of  the  Bible  to  mankind 
will  beware  of  the  fanaticism  engendered  by  the  passion- 
ate desire  of  all  sects  to  find  their  charter  in  a  miraculous 
book,  so  recently  made  accessible  to  all.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  will  be  justly  impatient  of  the  sciolism  which 


^  The  only  difference  on  this  point  between  Catholics  and  Protestants 
was  that  the  latter  insisted  on  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  every 
appeal  to  the  authority,  while  the  former  held  that  such  appeals  must  be 
made  through  the  Church,  whose  decisions  were  final. 


36  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

treats  apostles  and  prophets  as  though  they  had  been 
members  of  a  "  long-firm,"  whose  frauds  have  only  now 
been  detected.  They  will  set  themselves  patiently  to 
examine  whether  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures 
are  really  a  miraculous  and  isolated  revelation  ;  and  if 
not,  what  is  the  place  they  occupy  among  other  literatures 
and  traditions  that  have  influenced  the  moral  progress  of 
mankind. 

The  remaining  chapters  of  this  work  are  an  effort  to 
assist  such  an  examination. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    BIBLE    IN    PROTESTANT    AND    LOLLARD    TIMES 

During  the  nineteenth  century  the  Bible  may  be  said  to 
have  reached  its  apotheosis.  That  is  to  say,  in  no 
previous  century  was  it  regarded  by  such  numerous 
adorers  with  the  awe  due  to  a  message  from  God.  For 
though  the  Bible — a  name  to  which,  in  our  review  of 
the  earliest  Christian  centuries,  we  shall  have  to  attach  a 
very  elastic  and  variable  significance — had  always  been 
treated  with  reverence  as  a  collection  of  supernatural 
books,  yet  through  the  Early  and  Middle  Ages  it  was 
inaccessible  to  the  vast  majority  of  Christians  except  as 
its  utterances  were  doled  out  to  them  by  the  Church. 
And,  as  will  be  seen  later,  it  was  not  the  Bible  that  made 
the  Church,  but  the  Church  that  made  and  guaranteed 
the  Bible.  It  is  true  indeed  that,  with  the  usual 
argument  in  a  circle  which  consecrates  so  many  ecclesias- 
tical positions,  the  Church  appealed  to  recorded  words  of 
Jesus  and  his  apostles  for  its  commission  ;  but  the 
validity  of  that  appeal  rested,  at  least  in  part,  on  the 
judgment  of  the  Church  itself  as  to  the  authenticity  of 
the  Scriptures.  Nor  did  the  pretensions  of  the  Church 
extend  only  to  the  decision  of  questions  of  authenticity. 
It  claimed  the   right    of   authoritative    interpretation    as 

37 


38  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

well.  To  most  Christians  of  the  Early  and  Middle  Ages, 
therefore,  the  Bible,  instead  of  being  the  household 
treasure — we  might  almost  say  the  household  god — 
which  it  became  in  the  nineteenth  century,  was  rather  a 
mysterious  "  palladium,"  sanctioning  the  authority  of  the 
priests,  who  kept  it  in  their  holy  of  holies,  and  per- 
mitted access  to  it  only  through  themselves. 

Now,  in  treating  of  Man  and  the  Bible,  it  must  be  of 
interest  to  trace  the  gradual  process  by  which  the  priestly 
palladium  of  the  earlier  centuries  became  a  universal 
household  god  in  the  late  century.  And  this  can  best  be 
done  by  telling  the  story  backwards,  beginning,  in  this 
chapter,  with  the  period  since  Wycliffe.  Afterwards,  as 
a  geologist  digs  his  way  down  through  recent  and  earlier 
and  earliest  formations  to  the  unstratified  earth-crust  out 
of  which  all  these  formations  were  successively  evolved, 
so  we  must  make  our  way  backward  from  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  Bible  by  Wycliffe  and  his  successors,  through 
previous  ecclesiastical  usage  and  the  conditions  existing 
before  the  invention  of  printing,  to  the  primitive  times 
when  a  single  gospel  or  epistle  was  a  priceless  treasure, 
and  when  the  Church  was  still  uncertain  which  books 
should  be  recognised  and  which  disowned  as  the  Word  of 
God. 

It  is  one  of  the  anomalies  of  public  tolerance  that  the 
Bible  monopoly  should  have  been  endured  for  many 
years  after  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  had 
become  a  power  in  the  land.  Nay,  in  an  attenuated  form 
that  monopoly  survives  still.  For,  though  anyone  may 
issue  the  Scriptures  with  notes  or  emendations,  no  one 
other  than  the  King's  printers  or  the  two  historic  uni- 
versities may  even  yet  print  the  Bible  text  alone,  though 
amended    translations    or    text  and  commentary  may  be 


A   CRUEL   MONOPOLY  39 

issued  freely.  But  at  the  commencment  of  the  Bible 
Society's  work  the  monopoly  was  much  more  rigid,  and, 
as  a  result,  the  text  of  the  Scriptures  was  much  more 
costly  than  it  is  now.  Thus,  in  the  first  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century  such  a  Bible  as  can  now  be  purchased 
for  a  shiUing  would  cost  five  or  six  times  as  much.  At 
the  same  time,  the  economic  condition  of  the  vast 
majority  of  the  population  was  much  less  prosperous 
than  after  the  commercial  triumphs  signalising  the  middle 
and  end  of  that  age.  So  that,  previous  to  the  operation 
of  Bible  Society  charities,  the  cost  of  the  sacred  book 
made  it  a  luxury  rather  than  an  ordinary  necessity  of  the 
poor  man's  life.  Certainly  The  Cottar  s  Saturday  Night 
implies  the  supremacy  of  the  Bible  as  a  household  god 
in  certain  sections  of  humble  folk  even  previous  to  the 
influence  of  the  Bible  Society.  But  that  poetic  descrip- 
tion refers  to  Scotland  only.  And  whatever  may  have 
been  the  practice  in  England  of  those  parts  of  the 
population  inspired  by  Methodism  or  its  allied  spiritual 
forces,  it  is  as  certain  as  any  social  fact  of  the  time  can 
be  that  neither  the  peasantry  nor  the  industrial  classes 
in  England  were  in  the  eighteenth  century  anything  like 
as  familiar  with  the  Book,  or  as  much  given  to  its  use 
in  family  worship,  as  were  the  people  of  Scotland.  For 
instance,  when  inquiries  were  made  on  behalf  of  the  Bible 
Society  early  in  its  history,  it  was  found  that  in  the 
Colchester  district,  out  of  1059  families  visited,  521  were 
totally  destitute  of  the  Bible  ;  ^  and  amongst  500  vessels 
trading  from  Sunderland,  only  a  few  had  even  a  single 
Bible  on  board.  Such  facts  are  suggestive  of  a  state  of 
things  very  different  from  that  described  in  the  previous 
chapter.  Not  that  they  imply  any  lack  of  reverence  for 
1  Story  of  the  Bible  Society^  by  William  Canton,  p.  19. 


40  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

the  Bible  amongst  the  multitude  who  did  not  possess 
a  copy,  but  it  had  for  them  only  a  dim  and  distant 
sanctity,  confirming,  indeed,  their  fears  of  hell  and  hopes 
of  heaven,  but  vividly  touching  their  individual  life  only 
on  rare  occasions,  when  they  heard  the  lessons  read  in 
Church,  or  were  called  upon  to  "  kiss  the  book "  in 
court.  Whereas  that  familiar  everyday  perusal  of  its 
pages,  and  that  freedom  to  comment  thereon,  which 
during  the  nineteenth  century  became  a  whole  people's 
privilege  and  joy,  were  necessarily  impossible  except  to 
those  of  moderate  means,  or  else  of  exceptional  force  of 
religious  faith,  such  as  removes  mountains. 

In  the  twentieth  century  the  buying  of  a  small  Bible 
gives  the  buyer  no  more  thought  than  the  purchase  of  a 
magazine  or  a  sixpenny  novel  for  a  railway  journey.  But 
in  the  eighteenth  century  the  purchase  of  a  Bible  was, 
amongst  all  but  the  rich,  an  event  in  family  history. 
The  binding  and  the  print  were  carefully  considered,  the 
lowest  price  was  anxiously  ascertained  ;  and  when  the 
prize  was  brought  home  it  was  exhibited  with  pride,  and 
assigned  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  middle  of  the  best- 
parlour  table  with  something  of  the  solemn  joy  that 
attended  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  when  brought  to  its 
final  rest  among  the  chosen  people.  Then,  again,  the 
greater  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  a  period  of 
religious  depression,  during  which  the  manifestation  of 
anything  more  than  conventional  reverence  for  the  Bible 
was  a  breach  of  good  manners.  Nor  was  this  indifference 
much  disturbed  by  the  sporadic  growth  of  Methodism. 
For  long,  and  slow,  and  painful  was  the  progress  of  the 
religious  revival  brought  about  by  the  Wesleys  and 
Whitefield,  hindered  as  that  movement  was  by  social 
scorn,  episcopal  stolidity,  and  all  the  petty  penalties  which 


RELIGION   IN   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY  41 

the  stupidity  of  privileged  classes  could  devise.  Speaking 
of  that  age,  Mr  Rowland  E.  Prothero,  in  his  interesting 
book  on  The  Psalms  in  Human  Life^  says  : — 

''  Religion  grew  formal,  full  of  propriety,  drowsy,  prosper- 
ous. Its  authority  was  put  forward  with  cautious  regard  to 
the  probability  of  its  acceptance.  Seeming  to  distrust  itself, 
it  was  regarded  as  something  which  could  be  ignored,  not 
as  something  which  imperatively  demanded  to  be  either 
obeyed  or  condemned.  The  devotional  cast  of  mind,  the 
enthusiasm,  the  prophetic  vision,  the  martyr's  passion  were 
left  behind  in  the  natural  sanctuaries  of  the  mountains. 
Nothing  remained  but  a  religion  of  the  plains — low-lying, 
level,  utilitarian,  prosaic."^ 

While  such  a  Laodicean  temper  possessed  the  soul  of 
a  people,  the  Bible  could  not  hold  in  their  hearts  the  place 
it  achieved  in  the  succeeding  century.  For  the  words 
just  quoted  suggest  that  the  Book  was  a  theatrical 
property  of  Church  and  State,  rather  than  a  treasure  of 
the  people.  In  Scotland,  as  already  acknowledged,  the 
position  was  somewhat  different ;  for  there  the  Kirk  was, 
in  form  at  least,  democratic,  and  every  household  father 
claimed  as  good  a  right  as  the  preaching  elder  to 
interpret  Scripture.  And  yet  the  difference  was  one  of 
form  rather  than  of  substance.  For  early  drill  in  the 
Shorter  Catechism  and  Paraphrases,  with  perhaps  later 
exercises  in  the  Westminster  Confession,  had  strangely 
reduced  a  proverbially  "  hard-headed  "  race  to  one  dead 
level  of  conventional  belief,  and  this  belief  was  imposed 
by  the  Kirk.  That  Kirk  might  be  the  Kirk  of  the  people, 
but  the  Bible  was  the  Bible  of  the  Kirk. 

To  these  general  observations  on  the  relations  of  the 
Bible  and  the  people  one  exception  must  be  made,  not 
1  Op.  cit.y  pp.  298-9. 


42  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

only  in  Scotland,  but  in  England  and  all  over  the 
Christian  world.  For  the  custom  of  singing  the  Psalms 
in  public  worship  gave  to  the  supposed  lyrics  of  King 
David  a  special  popular  vogue  in  which  no  other  books 
of  the  Bible  shared.  Thus,  whereas  other  parts  of  the 
Scriptures  were  read  in  public  only  now  and  then,  accord- 
ing to  the  order  of  the  Lectionary  in  the  ancient  churches 
and  the  caprice  of  pastors  in  the  more  modern,  the 
treatment  of  the  Psalms  was  very  different.  In  England 
the  whole  Psalter  was  sung  right  through  twelve  times 
in  each  year.  And  if  the  Scottish  Kirk  did  not  share  this 
privilege,  she  had  her  metrical  paraphrases  continually 
repeated  in  school  and  home,  or  sung  in  the  Sunday 
worship,  so  that  they  were  more  impressed  on  the  memory 
than  any  other  part  of  the  Bible  could  be.  Now,  it  is 
undoubtedly  true  that  the  "hymn-book  of  the  second 
Temple "  has  shown  a  singular  power  of  adaptability  to 
the  most  various  religious  experiences  of  successive  ages 
and  discordant  sects  ;  but,  while  making  full  allowance  for 
that,  it  may  be  acknowledged  that  the  chief  practical 
reason  for  the  prominence  of  the  Psalms  in  human  life 
has  been  their  accessibility  to  the  common  people,  and 
their  impression  on  individual  memory  by  constant 
repetition  in  the  home,  the  school,  and  the  church.  This 
will  be  more  and  more  apparent  as  we  extend  into  earlier 
centuries  our  survey  of  the  relations  of  the  Bible  and 
Man.  Here  it  is  enough  to  note  that,  even  under  the 
dead  formalism  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  conventional 
prudery  which  disdained  Methodism  distinctly  com- 
mended the  propriety  of  hearing  the  Psalms  said  or  sung 
at  least  once  on  a  Sunday,  and  of  joining  in  the  quaint 
doggerel,  whether  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins,  or  of  Tate 
and  Brady. 


THE   BOOK   AND   THE   PROPHET        43 

Here  we  may  well  pause  for  a  moment  to  note  one 
lesson  already  learned  on  the  relations  of  Man  and  the 
Bible.  The  contrasts  presented  by  the  two  centuries 
considered  must  obviously  suggest  that  the  Book  without 
the  Prophet  is  a  sealed  fountain.  There  must  be  a 
Moses  to  strike  the  rock  before  the  waters  of  life  gush 
forth.  For  though  it  is  part  of  my  argument  that  the 
Bible  was  comparatively  difficult  of  access  until  the  Bible 
Society  threw  wide  its  pages  to  mankind,  yet  even  in  the 
deadest  times  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  accorded 
at  least  the  honours  of  a  fetish,  and  contradiction  of  its 
teachings  was  a  punishable  offence,  still  visited  with  the 
sort  of  stupid  cruelty  inspired  by  fear  of  heaven's  wrath. 
But  till  Wesley  and  Whitefield  arose  it  was  a  dead  letter. 
There  was  "  no  breath  at  all  in  the  midst  of  it."  Indeed, 
not  then  only,  but  throughout  Christian  history,  the 
experience  of  the  Ethiopian  eunuch  has  been  renewed. 
"  Understandest  thou  what  thou  readest  ? "  "  How  can 
I,  except  some  man  should  guide  me  ?''  There  have 
been  indeed  exceptional  and  notable  cases  in  which 
solitary  reading  of  the  Bible  has  apparently  brought 
about  moral  salvation.  But  in  almost  all  such  cases  the 
wonder  has  been  wrought  by  the  echo  of  a  mother's  or  a 
father's  almost  forgotten  voice,  recalled  by  the  solemn 
words,  or  else  by  the  pointed  expression  given  by  some 
passage  in  the  Book  to  the  corporate  feeling  of  the  better 
society  which  the  outcast  now  remembers  with  remorse  ; 
or  again  by  the  "  confirmation  strong  "  of  "  holy  writ " 
to  the  neglected  warnings  of  human  experience.  And 
the  story  of  the  Bible  Society  in  the  main  supports  what 
is  here  said.  For  though  its  traditions  naturally  dwell 
with  affection  on  such  exceptional  cases  as  are  here 
admitted,  the  obvious  and  palpable  fact    is,  that  where 


44  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

prophets  have  abounded,  cheap  Bibles  have  done  most 
good.  But  where  there  has  been  no  living  word,  barren- 
ness of  result  is  patent  in  the  religious  census  of  the 
British  empire. 

Going  back  to  the  seventeenth  century,  we  must  not 
allow  the  volcanic  outburst  of  Puritan  zeal  to  mislead  us 
as  to  the  average  spiritual  condition  of  the  common  people 
in  those  days.  Scriptural  language  may  then  have  larded 
ordinary  speech,  both  in  cottage  and  palace.  But  the 
habit  was  derived  more  from  public  sermons  and  prayers 
than  from  private  Bible-reading.  For  if  the  Book  was 
too  costly  in  the  eighteenth  century  to  be  a  necessary  of 
household  life,  much  more  was  it  so  in  the  seventeenth. 
It  was  an  indispensable  instrument  for  the  defence  of  the 
Gospel,  but  much  too  costly  to  be  wielded  except  by  the 
congregations  of  the  saints.  Indeed,  tracing  backwards 
from  our  own  times  the  story  of  the  relations  of  Man  and 
the  Bible,  we  here  first  find  clear  evidence  of  the  dependence 
of  the  Book  upon  ecclesiastical  authority.  Of  course,  I 
do  not  mean  that  the  Bible  ever  was  or  could  be  depend- 
ent on  decree  or  licence  of  the  Church  for  its  power  to 
stir  mankind.  But  undoubtedly,  in  the  absence  of  Bible 
Societies  and  such  extra-ecclesiastical  agencies,  it  did  more 
largely  than  now  depend  upon  the  public  services  of 
religion  for  its  contact  with  the  common  people.  Now 
those  services  were  under  ecclesiastical  authority  of  one 
sort  or  another,  whether  priest,  presbyter,  or  preacher. 
Convocation,  Synod,  or  Assembly  of  Divines.  And  it 
was  inevitable  that  the  unlettered  multitude  should  re- 
gard the  Book  as  authenticated  by  the  Church,  rather  than 
the  Church  as  consecrated  by  the  Book. 

Of  this  attitude  of  the  popular  mind  we  may  find  a 
curious  illustration  in  the  charge  made  by  both  Anglican 


THE   QUAKERS  45 

and  Nonconformist  ecclesiasticism  against  the  Quakers, 
that  the  latter  undervalued  the  Bible.  Now  the  only 
justification  for  this  charge  was  the  refusal  of  George  Fox 
and  his  true  followers  to  acknowledge  the  Bible  as  "  the 
Word  of  God."  The  real  nature  of  that  refusal  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  following  extract  from  Fox's  Journal^ 
giving  his  own  account  of  his  reason  for  interrupting  a 
Church  service  at  Nottingham.  The  incident  occurred 
in  1648,  and  in  that  year  the  Presbyterian  order,  pre- 
sumably, prevailed. 

"  As  I  went  towards  Nottingham  on  a  First  Day  morn- 
ing, with  friends,  to  a  meeting  there,  when  I  came  on  the 
top  of  a  hill  in  sight  of  the  town,  the  Lord  said  to  me, 
'  Thou  must  cry  against  yonder  great  idol,  and  against  the 
worshippers  therein.'  I  said  nothing  of  this  to  the  friends, 
but  went  with  them  to  the  meeting,  where  the  mighty 
power  of  the  Lord  God  was  amongst  us  ;  in  which  I  left 
friends  sitting  in  the  meeting,  and  went  to  the  steeple-house. 
When  I  came  there,  all  the  people  looked  Hke  fallow  ground, 
and  the  priest,^  like  a  great  lump  of  earth,  stood  in  his  pulpit 
above.  He  took  for  his  text  these  words  of  Peter  :  '  We 
have  also  a  more  sure  word  of  prophecy,  whereunto  ye  do 
well  that  ye  take  heed  as  unto  a  light  shining  in  a  dark 
place  until  the  day  dawn  and  the  day-star  arise  in  your 
hearts.'  He  told  the  people  this  ^  vv^as  the  Scriptures,  by 
which  they  were  to  try  all  doctrines,  religions,  and  opinions. 
Now  the  Lord's  power  was  so  mighty  upon  me,  and  so 
strong  in  me,  that  I  could  not  hold,  but  was  made  to  cry 
out,  '  Oh  !  no,  it  is  not  the  Scriptures,'  and  told  them  it 
was  the  Holy  Spirit  by  which  the  holy  men   of  God  gave 

^  The  word  "  priest "  does  not  necessarily  imply  an  Anglican  service. 
For  to  George,  as  to  Milton,  "  new  presbyter  was  but  old  priest  writ  large." 

2  There  is  some  ambiguity  here.  Did  '•'this''  refer  to  the  "word  of 
prophecy "  or  to  the  "day-star"?  I  think  the  former;  for  the  existence 
of  Scripture  was  a  present  fact,  not  a  future  hope,  and  as  such  the  preacher 
must  have  treated  it. 


46  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

forth  the  Scriptures,  whereby  opinions,  religions,  and  judg- 
ments were  to  be  tried  ;  for  it  led  into  all  truth,  and  so 
gave  the  knowledge  of  all  truth.  The  Jews  had  the 
Scriptures,  yet  resisted  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  rejected  Christ, 
the  bright  morning-star.  They  persecuted  him  and  his 
apostles,  and  took  upon  them  to  try  their  doctrines  by  the 
Scriptures,  but  erred  in  judgment,  and  did  not  try  them 
right  J  because  they  tried  without  the  Holy  Ghost.  As  I 
spoke  thus  amongst  them,  the  officers  came,  took  me  away, 
and  put  me  into  a  nasty  stinking  prison,  the  smell  whereof 
got  so  into  my  nose  and  throat,  that  it  very  much  annoyed 
me." 

Now  it  is  true  that  in  this  extract  the  phrase  "  Word  of 
God"  does  not  occur.  Nevertheless  the  whole  tenor 
of  it  testifies  to  George  Fox's  belief  in  a  divine  word 
behind  the  Scriptures,  a  word  that  "  spake  by  the  prophets  " 
and  bore  witness  in  the  hearts  of  those  to  whom  the 
prophets  spoke.  In  fact,  he  looked  through  the  Bible  to 
its  source,  and  declared  that  source  of  Hfe  and  light  to  be 
as  available  for  common  men  of  his  own  day  as  it  had 
been  for  prophets  before  the  Gospels  or  Epistles  were 
written.  But  he  insisted  that  the  insufficiency  of  the 
Scriptures  without  the  inward  light  had  been  amply 
proved  by  the  conduct  of  the  Jews,  and,  he  might  have 
added,  by  that  of  many  Bible  Christians  in  his  own  day. 
Why  did  the  rulers  of  the  Church,  and,  as  the  context  in 
his  Journal  shows,  the  common  people  also,  condemn 
even  what  was  good  in  his  doctrine  }  Manifestly  because 
it  was  unofficial,  because  it  was  contrary  to  the  teaching 
of  both  priest  and  presbyter,  who  declared  the  Bible  to 
be  the  "  sure  word  of  prophecy."  In  other  words, 
even  in  the  Puritan  seventeenth  century,  it  was  the 
Church  that  guaranteed  the  Bible,  and  not  the  Bible  the 
Church. 


THE   AUTHORISED   VERSION  47 

But  the  greatest  official  tribute  to  the  Bible  during 
this  seventeenth  century  was  the  achievement  of  the 
Authorised  Version,  issued  in  1611,  and  especially  its 
dedication  to  that  "  most  dread  sovereign  "  James  I.,  a 
document  wherein  all  the  virtues  of  a  massive  and  sonorous 
English  style  are  desecrated  by  the  arts  of  an  abject 
flattery,  for  which  even  the  poor  defence  of  sincerity  can 
scarcely  be  set  up.  However,  our  only  concern  with  it 
here  is  to  note  that  it  heralds  an  issue  of  the  Bible  by 
earthly  authority,  and  asserts  for  the  Anglican  Church — of 
course  with  due  submission  to  its  worldly  head — the 
right  to  determine  what  is  the  sincere  milk  of  the  Word, 
as  distinguished  from  adulterations  of  "  Popish  Persons 
at  home  or  abroad"  on  the  one  hand,  or  of  " self-conceited 
Brethren  "  on  the  other,  "  who  run  their  own  ways." 

As  to  the  sound  and  lofty  English  in  which  that  trans- 
lation is  embodied,  it  is  impossible  to  differ  from  the 
unanimous  judgment  of  three  hundred  years.  Or,  if  any 
complaint  can  be  made,  it  is  only  that  from  a  literary 
point  of  view  it  is  too  good.  For  it  has  so  charmed 
English  ears  and  hearts  that  any  unanimous  adoption 
of  a  new  version,  more  rigorously  representative  of  what 
the  Hebrew  and  Hellenistic  authors  really  wrote,  is  made 
almost  impossible.  It  is  pre-eminently  an  illustration  of 
the  adage,  "  No  man,  having  drunk  old  wine,  straightway 
desireth  new  ;  for  he  saith,  The  old  is  better."  We  must 
even  do  as  Papias  says  the  early  Greek  Christians  did 
with  the  alleged  Aramaic  Gospel,  which  "  everyone 
interpreted  as  he  could."  By  the  aid  of  our  "Holy 
Bible  with  Twenty  Thousand  Emendations,"  the  Revised 
Version,  the  unhappily  incomplete  "  Polychrome  Bible," 
and  other  such  efforts,  we  may  remind  ourselves  that  the 
Authorised  Version  is  not  infallible.     But  as  to  setting 


48  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

it  aside — we  might  as  well  talk  of  setting  aside  Magna 
Charta. 

This  great  version  however,  was,  of  course,  far  from 
being  original.  For  while  the  learned  men,  who,  by  a 
division  of  labour,  produced  it  in  some  four  years,  were 
as  well  qualified  as  the  scholarship  of  the  time  allowed,  to 
interpret  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  originals,  they  had  also 
before  them  the  previous  versions  of  Wycliffe,  Tyndale, 
and  Coverdale,  revised  and  re-revised  by  Cranmer  and 
Wilham  Whittingham,  who,  with  the  co-operation  of 
Geneva  refugees  in  the  days  of  Mary  I.,  produced  "  the 
Geneva  Bible"  in  1557,  the  first  English  translation 
issued  in  Roman  letters  and  divided  into  verses.  Then 
also  in  1568  Archbishop  Parker,  with  the  assistance  of 
fifteen  scholars,  of  whom  eight  were  Bishops,  produced 
another  revision  which  a  nation  less  scrupulous  about  the 
Bible  might  have  been  content  to  accept  as  final.  But  the 
Hampton  Court  Conference  was  not  satisfied  ;  and  the 
British  Solomon  was  induced,  not  very  willingly  at  first, 
it  would  appear,  to  appoint  a  large  Commission  of  fifty- 
four^  members  to  achieve,  as  the  dedication  says,  "one 
more  exact  translation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  into  the 
English  tongue."  But,  like  wise  men,  they  were  content 
to  adopt  the  work  of  their  predecessors  so  far  as  they 
judged  it  faithful  to  the  original  languages.  For  their 
method  of  procedure  was,  they  tell  us — or  rather  told  the 
earthly  head  of  the  Church — to  elicit  the  meaning  "  out 
of  the  Original  Sacred  Tongues,  together  with  comparing 
the  labours  both  in  our  own  and  other  foreign  languages 
of  many  worthy  men  who  went  before  us."  And  though 
genius  is  not  usually  attributed  to  book-worms,  those 
translators  had  at  least  this  in  common  with  Shakespeare, 
1  Only  forty-seven  actually  took  part  in  the  work. 


KING   JAMES   I.    AND   THE   BIBLE       49 

that  where  they  borrowed  other  people's  work,  they 
transmuted  silver  into  gold.  For  the  writers  of  the 
sumptuous  though  unctuous  English  of  the  dedication 
were  quite  incapable  of  breaking  the  teeth  of  readers  with 
gravel,  or  marring  old  rhythms  for  the  sake  of  trivial 
amendments. 

Our  Authorised  Version  was  the  first  authoritative 
translation  of  the  whole  Bible  into  any  modern  vernacular 
tongue.  It  was  made  "by  his  Majesty's  special 
command."  It  was  "  appointed  to  be  read  in  churches." 
And  to  this  day  nothing  but  an  Act  of  Parliament  would 
make  it  legal  to  substitute  the  Revised  Version  for  the 
Authorised  in  reading  the  "  Lessons  "  which  form  part  of 
the  morning  and  evening  service.  With  this  exceptionally 
fortunate  result  of  Tudor  and  Stuart  legislation  we  shall 
not  quarrel.  But  the  point  to  be  noted  here  is  the 
conspicuous  illustration  given  of  the  relations  of  the 
Church  to  the  Bible.  For  even  if  it  had  been  possible  in 
the  seventeenth  century  to  separate  things  ecclesiastical 
from  things  political,  things  sacred  from  things  secular,  it 
was  King  James  as  "  sacred  Majesty,"  King  James  as  head 
of  the  Anglican  Church,  King  James,  moved  thereto  by  the 
Hampton  Court  clergy,  who  watched  over  and  approved 
and  authorised  the  translation  of  the  Word  of  God  and 
"  appointed  it  to  be  read  in  churches."  In  this  con- 
currence or  rather  merging  of  ecclesiastical  in  royal 
authority  many  good  people  recognised  a  fulfilment  of  the 
prophecy,  "  Kings  shall  be  thy  nursing  fathers."  But  it  is 
of  more  importance  to  us  to  note  that  it  was  rather  a 
critical  step  in  the  gradual  emancipation  of  the  State  from 
the  Church,  which  had  been  first  inauspiciously  begun  by 
the  unholy  hands  of  Henry  VIII. 

It  is  true  that  during  the  century  which  included  the 

4 


50  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

ill-omened  reign  of  the  latter  monarch,  the  first  official 
attempts  were  made  to  give  all  English  people  access  to 
the  whole  Bible  in  their  own  language.  But  it  cannot  for 
a  moment  be  supposed  that  the  successive  versions  already- 
enumerated  could  possibly  have  done  for  the  multitude 
the  work  of  the  modern  Bible  Society  in  making  the 
Scriptures  "  familiar  in  their  mouths  as  household  words." 
For,  in  the  first  place,  a  very  large  part  of  the  population, 
probably  the  majority,  could  not  read.  And  in  the  next 
place,  the  cost  of  the  Book  must  have  put  it  out  of  the 
reach  of  the  labouring  classes,  who  then,  as  always,  were 
enormously  preponderant  in  numbers.^  Yet  it  is  obvious 
from  innumerable  allusions,  scattered  through  the  great 
literature  of  the  century,  that  not  only  readers  of  books, 
but  the  humblest  hearers  of  stage  plays  were  presumed 
to  be  at  least  so  far  acquainted  with  Bible  narratives  and 
doctrines  as  to  follow  easily  an  imperfect  citation  or  a 
passing  reference.  Still  the  popular  knowledge  implied 
must,  for  the  two  reasons  already  given — cost  of  the 
Book,  and  the  widespread  inability  to  read — have  been 
very  much  more  limited  than  in  the  age  of  Bible  Societies 
and  Sunday  Schools.  Nor  was  it  possible  that  the 
scanty  means  then  existing  for  the  education  of  children 
could  store  the  memory  with  Bible  lore  in  early  days. 
On  a  point  like  this  we  may  easily  be  misled  by  the 
educational  enthusiasm  aroused  partly  by  the  revival  of 

1  In  his  Econo77iic  Interpretatio7i  of  History^  the  late  Professor  Thorold 
Rogers  describes  the  condition  of  the  people  during  the  sixteenth  century 
as  continually  going  from  bad  to  worse.  Neither  the  miserly  craft  of 
Henry  VII.,  nor  his  son's  plunder  of  the  monasteries,  nor  the  wild 
extravagance  of  the  latter,  had  any  effect  in  bettering  the  lot  of  the 
labouring  multitude.  "  When  Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne  both  sovereign 
and  people  were  miserably  poor.  The  base  money  had  driven  the  work- 
ing classes  to  beggary,  etc."  {op.  cit.,  p.  37).  In  such  a  state  of  things 
Bibles  were  necessarily  a  luxury  of  the  rich. 


POPULARITY   OF   TYNDALE'S   VERSION  51 

letters  and  partly  by  the  Reformation.  For  in  England 
at  least — though  Scotland,  incited  by  John  Knox,  pursued 
a  more  democratic  policy — the  new  Grammar  Schools  were 
limited  in  their  range  of  influence,  and  though  originally 
intended  for  the  poor,  soon  became  the  prey  of  the  rich. 

In  fine,  it  was  not  by  any  movement  of  systematic 
national  education  that  popular  knowledge  of  the  Bible 
was  increased  during  the  sixteenth  century,  but  by  the 
response  of  religious  leaders  to  the  revival  of  the  people's 
hunger  for  the  Word  of  God.  I  say  the  revival,  for  the 
spirit  of  LoUardism  was  only  apparently  dead.  And 
when  once  the  quarrel  of  Henry  VIII.  with  the  Pope 
incidentally  opened  the  ports  to  Tyndale's  Bible,  the  good 
seed  fell  on  prepared  ground.  For  though  the  first 
edition  of  that  great  work  was  bought  up  and  burned  by 
ecclesiastical  authority  in  Antwerp,  it  had  been  available 
during  three  years  for  pious  smugglers  before  that  fate 
befell  it  in  1529.  And  before  the  martyrdom  of  its  heroic 
author  in  1536,  some  ten  or  twelve  new  editions  had 
been  issued.  It  is  matter  of  history  that  this  version  of 
Tyndale's  attracted  very  keen  interest.  There  is  probably 
no  exaggeration  in  the  description  given  by  an  old  writer 
who  declares  that  this  interest  was  by  no  means  confined 
to  "  the  learned,  and  those  that  were  noted  as  lovers  of 
the  Reformation,"  but  was  general  "  all  England  over, 
among  all  the  vulgar  and  common  people."  "With 
what  greediness  the  Word  of  God  was  read,  and  what 
resort  to  places  where  the  reading  of  it  was  !  Everybody 
that  could  bought  the  Book,  or  busily  read  it,  or  got 
others  to  read  it  if  they  could  not  themselves  ;  and  divers 
more  elderly  people  learned  (to  read)  on  purpose  ;  and 
even  little  boys  flocked  among  the  rest  to  hear  portions  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures  read." 


52  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

This  is  just  what  might  naturally  be  expected  in  a 
country  where,  in  the  ashes  of  LoUardism,  many  sparks  of 
its  fire  remained,  in  an  age  when  all  Europe  watched  with 
passionate  interest  the  progress  of  the  Lutheran  revolt 
from  the  Pope,  and  in  a  time  when  there  were  scarcely 
any  books  available  for  the  people,  and  absolutely  not  one 
to  vie  with  an  English  Bible  in  its  appeal  to  the  deepest 
springs  of  hope,  joy,  and  fear  in  the  common  man.  Still, 
the  words  quoted  above  sufficiently  indicate  how  much 
more  limited  was  popular  access  to  the  Bible  than  it  is  in 
our  own  day.  It  was  more  by  hearing  than  by  reading 
for  themselves  that  the  vast  majority  became  acquainted 
with  the  Book.  Before  King  Henry  had  advanced  so  far 
as  to  authorise,  though  not  to  compel,  the  ecclesiastical  use 
of  Coverdale's  revision  of  Tyndale,  meetings  or  con- 
venticles for  the  purpose  of  Bible-reading  were  at  least 
connived  at  by  Bishops  and  magistrates.  And  when  at 
length  the  open  Bible  took  its  place  in  the  public  services 
of  the  Church,  it  was  regarded  as  the  chief  boon  of  the 
reformed  religion.  It  is  true  that  Henry  VIII.,  though 
worldly  wise  enough  to  use  a  subservient  Parliament  as 
his  tool,  gave  his  people  the  Bible,  as  he  gave  or  took 
from  them  everything  else,  with  a  matter-of-course 
assumption  of  the  embodiment  of  all  power,  whether 
temporal  or  spiritual,  in  himself.  But  though  he  might 
hand  the  Book  to  Cranmer,  the  people  did  not  receive  it 
from  the  king  ;  they  received  it  from  the  Church,  and 
were  henceforward  mainly  indebted  to  the  Church  for 
their  knowledge  of  the  Word. 

A  somewhat  pathetic  illustration  of  the  difficulties 
which  countless  poor  people  must  have  experienced  at 
that  time  in  obtaining  the  Scriptures  for  themselves,  is 
afforded  by  the  institution  of  chained  Bibles,  of    which 


CHAINED    BIBLES  53 

relics  have  been  from  time  to  time  reported  in  our  own 
days.  Thus  in  the  year  1855  the  Times  newspaper 
reported  the  replacing  in  Canterbury  Cathedral  of  a  great 
Bible  that  had  certainly  once  been  chained  on  a  reading- 
desk  to  which  the  public  would  appear  to  have  had  access. 
The  particular  book  is  said  to  be  a  second  edition  of 
Cranmer's  Bible,  and  dated  1572.  It  was  almost  certainly 
placed  in  position  immediately  on  publication.  Various 
other  chained  Bibles  have  been  reported  during  the  last 
twenty  years  by  correspondents  of  Notes  and  Queries^  but 
it  is  sufficient  for  my  purpose  to  note  the  custom  and  its 
implications.  For  plainly,  if  Bibles  had  been  even  half 
as  plentiful  as  they  are  now,  no  one  would  have  thought 
of  putting  up  chained  Bibles.  Nor  can  we  altogether 
avoid  the  painful  reflection  that  neither  the  sacredness  of 
the  Book  nor  the  sanctity  of  the  place  could  make  chain 
and  lock  needless  for  safety.  Yet  in  modern  times 
visitors  and  even  loungers  of  all  classes  stray  about  our 
magnificent  cathedrals,  where  often  volumes  of  no  small 
value  lie  on  reading-desks  or  stalls  apparently  unguarded. 
Perhaps  there  may  be  very  exceptional  cases  of  attempted 
theft,  though  one  does  not  see  them  reported,  and  indeed 
they  must  be  so  rare  that  no  one  expects  them.  What 
is  the  reason  of  this  difference  between  our  generation 
and  that  of  the  chained  Bibles  }     Is  it  that  the  open  Bible 

1  The  Bible  was  not  the  only  book  treated  in  this  fashion,  for  a 
correspondent  writing  to  Notes  and  Queries  (7th  series),  Nov.  27,  1886, 
reports  a  little  library  of  chained  books  in  the  Lady  Chapel  of  Wooton 
Wawen  Parish  Church,  Warwickshire.  In  fact,  it  was  an  ancient  "free 
library"  for  the  parishioners,  though,  of  course,  it  was  limited  to  religious 
literature.  It  is  curious  to  note  that  Calvin's  Institutes  in  English  is 
mentioned  amongst  the  collection.  There  is  also  a  well-known  chained 
hbrary,  still  preserved,  in  Wimborne  Minster.  It  has  survived  many 
changes,  but  the  arrangement  of  the  books  and  of  the  chains  is  almost 
certainly  what  it  was  of  old. 


54  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

has  made  us  so  much  more  honest  ?  One  would  like  to 
think  so  if  the  police  reports  would  allow  us.  Or  is  it 
that  a  great  Bible  in  the  former  age  commanded  so  high 
a  price  that  it  was  well  worth  stealing  ?  The  contemptible 
and  villainous  thefts  of  rare  illustrations  or  other  precious 
pages  from  priceless  books  in  the  British  Museum  and 
other  great  libraries  unfortunately  sway  the  balance 
towards  the  latter  view. 

But,  returning  to  our  proper  subject,  1  observe  once 
more  that  our  information  about  the  Bible  in  the  sixteenth 
century  clearly  suggests  that  amongst  the  vast  majority 
of  the  population  such  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  as 
they  possessed  came  by  hearing  rather  than  by  reading. 
This  is  the  impression  made  upon  me  by  the  sort  of 
Bible  knowledge  expected  by  Shakespeare  in  the  hearers 
of  his  plays.  That  he  was  himself  at  least  as  well  versed 
in  sacred  story  as  in  translations  of  Plutarch  there  is 
no  reason  whatever  to  doubt.  Born  at  the  beginning 
of  Elizabeth's  reign,  amid  the  echoes  of  the  Coverdale- 
Tyndale  Bible,  he  grew  up  under  the  predominance  of 
the  Cranmer  and  Geneva  Bibles,  and  during  the  last  five 
years  of  his  life  must  have  heard  our  familiar  Authorised 
Version  read  in  Stratford-on-Avon  Church.  The  word 
"  Bible,"  however,  does  not  once  occur  in  his  plays  or 
poems.^  And  this  not  at  all  because  he  thought  allusion 
to  anything  so  sacred  to  be  inappropriate  in  a  playwright 
or  poet  of  love,  for  in  Othello  he  puts  into  the  foul 
mouth  of  lago  the  words  : 

"  Trifles  light  as  air 
Are  to  the  jealous  confirmation  strong 
As  proofs  of  holy  writ." 

1  One's  own  observation   is   confirmed  by  the  Concordance  of  Mary 
Cowden  Clarke. 


SHAKESPEARE   AND   THE   BIBLE         SS 

And  in  the  Merchant  of  Venice^  Antonio,  after  Shylock's 
gloating  recital  of  Jacob's  sharp  practice  in  the  sheep- 
folds,  observes  impatiently  : 

"  Mark  you  this,  Bassanio  ; 
The  devil  can  cite  Scripture  for  his  purpose. 
An  evil  soul  producing  holy  witness 
Is  like  a  villain  w^ith  a  smiling  cheek  j 
A  goodly  apple  rotten  at  the  heart. 
O  what  a  goodly  outside  falsehood  hath  !  " 

Now  to  the  modern  Bible  reader  there  does  not  seem  to 
be  in  the  story  of  Jacob's  sheep  dealings  any  such  mani- 
fest sanctity  as  to  justify  the  almost  passionate  repugnance 
of  Antonio  to  hearing  it  quoted  by  a  money-lending 
Jew.  But  then  it  belonged  to  "  holy  writ,"  which  was 
in  the  mind  of  the  poet  and  his  contemporaries  sanctified, 
not  so  much  by  personal  or  domestic  reading,  as  by  the 
solemnities  of  public  worship,  or,  in  other  words,  by  the 
authority  of  the  Church. 

As  a  worshipper  at  Stratford-on-Avon  and  in  London, 
Shakespeare  had  witnessed  more  rapid  alternations  of  out- 
ward ritual  than  any  preceding  generation  had  ever  seen. 
But  both  Catholic  and  Protestant  ecclesiastics  had,  through 
all  such  changes,  upheld  the  traditional  awe  which 
hallowed  the  Bible  as  the  very  voice  of  God.  For  if  it 
be  said,  as  we  shall  presently  have  to  admit,  that  when 
Papal  Rome  had  sway,  the  Bible — with  certain  exceptions 
— was  withheld  from  the  laity,  the  answer  is  that  this 
was  not  from  any  want  of  reverence  for  the  Word,  but 
rather  from  excess  of  reverence  corrupted  to  idolatry,  the 
same  sort  of  fetishistic  superstition,  in  fact,  which  in  the 
Mass  withheld  the  cup  from  laymen,  because  it  was  too 
divine  a  thing  to  be  touched  except  by  consecrated  lips. 


S6  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

Now,  though  early  Protestants  were  not  generally  aware 
of  it,  the  Lutheran,  Zwinglian,  and  Calvinistic  waves  of 
popular  impulse  were  generated  to  a  considerable  extent 
by  a  humanistic  feeling  which,  though  it  was  hardly  yet 
an  "enthusiasm  of  humanity,"  began  to  be  impatient  of 
mere  priestcraft.  The  ultimate  developments  of  this 
humanism  were,  of  course,  far  out  of  sight,  and  inconceiv- 
able— as,  indeed,  they  are  even  yet  to  the  majority  of 
Christians.  Meanwhile,  the  same  humanistic  feeling 
which  gave  the  cup  to  the  laity  unveiled  to  them  also 
the  Bible. 

But  this  humanistic  feeling  worked  through  the  Re- 
formed Church  ;  and  the  newly  granted  laymen's  privilege 
of  access  to  the  Bible  was  enjoyed  mainly  in  the  Church 
services.  Thus  "  holy  writ "  was  a  sacred  deposit, 
entrusted  of  old  to  the  Church,  but  now  in  the  latter 
days  communicated  by  her  to  the  whole  people  of 
Christ.  Accordingly  the  references  of  Shakespeare  to 
the  Bible  suggest  much  more  an  oral  acquaintance  with 
it  than  the  personal  intimacy  apparent  in  T/ie  Cottar  s 
Saturday  Night}  The  grave-digger  in  Hamlet^  arguing 
with  his  mate  about  Adam,  as  "  the  first  that  ever  bore 
arms,"  exclaims  "  What  !  art  a  heathen  ?  How  dost 
thou    understand    the    Scripture  ?      The    Scripture    says 


^  "As  a  rule  his  (Shakespeare's)  use  of  scriptural  phraseology,  as  of 
scriptural  history,  suggests  youthful  reminiscence  and  the  assimilative 
tendency  of  the  mind  in  an  early  stage  of  development,  rather  than  close 
and  continuous  study  of  the  Bible  in  adult  life"  {A  Life  of  William 
Shakespeare,  by  Sidney  Lee,  2nd  ed.,  p.  17).  The  Right  Reverend 
Charles  Wordsworth,  Bishop  of  St  Andrews,  in  his  work  on  Shakspeare's 
Knowledge  and  Use  of  the  Bible,  was  too  anxious  to  make  the  poet  a 
devout  son  of  the  Church.  Most  of  the  Bishop's  quotations,  though,  of 
course,  with  noble  exceptions,  are  of  a  piece  with  what  he  solemnly  gives 
us  from  Jaques,  in  As  Yoii  Like  It,  "  I'll  go  sleep  if  I  can  ;  and  if  I 
cannot,  I'll  rail  against  all  the  first-born  of  Egypt." 


ORAL   KNOWLEDGE   OF   THE   BIBLE     57 

Adam  digged  :  could  he  dig  without  arms  ?  '*  Now 
this  is  a  purely  inferential  interpretation  of  the  sacred 
text.  For  there  is  nothing  in  Genesis  about  Adam 
"  digging."  It  is  written  that  he  was  put  in  the  garden 
"  to  dress  and  to  keep  it,"  and  it  may  safely  be  inferred 
from  this  that  he  "  digged."  But  this  is  just  such  an 
inferential  interpretation  as  might  naturally  occur  to 
uncultivated  hearers  of  the  Word,  who  were  not  much  in 
the  habit  of  reading  it  with  their  own  eyes.  Indeed, 
one  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  honest  grave-digger  was 
mingling  with  holy  writ  a  rhyme  much  older  than  his  day  : 

"  Whan  Adam  dalfe  and  Eve  spane, 
Whare  was  than  the  pride  of  man  ?  "  ^ 

Nor  does  it  seem  that  any  scriptural  references  made  by 
the  great  poet  are  more  suggestive  of  private  reading 
than  of  public  hearing.  The  sacred  name  "  Jesus  "  occurs 
only  once  with  the  final  s.  Ordinarily  it  appears  as  "  Jesu," 
and  once  as  "  Jesu  Maria."  This  latter  recurrence  to 
Catholic  usage  may  very  well  have  been  suggested  by 
the  historic  sense  in  which  Shakespeare  was  not  wanting, 
notwithstanding  his  violent  anachronisms.  At  the  same 
time,  it  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  latest  days  of  Elizabeth 
it  was  considered  safe  to  introduce  a  distinctly  Roman 
Catholic  title  of  Christ.  But  a  considerable  proportion 
of  the  first  hearers  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  had,  no  doubt,  in 
their  earliest  days  used  this  form  in  their  personal 
devotions  while  hearing  Mass  under  Mary.  And  the 
same  may  be  said  of  the  constant  preference  of  the 
vocative  form  "  Jesu  "  rather  than  "  Jesus."     It  was  the 

^  Quoted  in  the  New  English  Dictionary,  s.v.  "  Delve,"  from  a  MS. 
assigned  to  A.D.  1340.  The  more  modern  form  of  the  couplet  changes 
the  strong  preterite  "dalfe"  to  the  weak  form  "delved,"  and  for  the 
second  line  substitutes  "  Who  was  then  the  gentleman  ? " 


58  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

form  habitually  used  in  the  services  of  the  ancient 
Church,  and  it  was  perhaps  not  very  easily  displaced  in 
the  prayers  of  the  people.  One  other  allusion  is  still 
more  suggestive  of  the  constancy  with  which  the  Church 
services  were  in  the  mind  of  the  poet.  The  unfortunate 
King  Richard  11.,  at  the  moment  before  resigning  his 
crown  to  Bolingbroke,  cries  : 

"  God  save  the  King  !      Will  no  man  say  Amen  ? 
Am  I  both  priest  and  clerk  ?  ^     Well  then,  amen." 

On  the  whole,  then,  we  may  fairly  conclude  that 
Shakespeare's  references  to  holy  writ  imply  a  Bible- 
hearing  rather  than  a  Bible-reading  generation.  For 
while  causes  mentioned  above  made  any  universal  pos- 
session of  the  Scriptures  impossible,  all  were,  by  law, 
compelled  to  attend  their  parish  church. 

But  even  granting  that  during  the  sixteenth  century 
English  knowledge  of  the  Bible  was  chiefly  oral  and  de- 
rived through  Church  services,  our  ancestors  of  that  age 
were,  in  this  respect,  very  much  better  off  than  the  vast 
majority  of  their  Continental  fellow-Christians.  For  the 
Reformation  movement  in  France,  Italy,  Switzerland,  and 
even  in  Germany,  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  ever  laid 
hold  of  the  soul  of  a  people  with  such  thoroughness  of 
penetration  as  it  did  in  England  and  Scotland.  The 
Germans,  of  course,  have  as  keen  a  sentiment  about  re- 
ligious ideals  as  they  have  about  poetry  or  patriotism. 
But  the  Reformation  did  not  turn  every  earnest  believer 
into  a  theologian  as  it  did  in  Britain  ;  nor  did  it  beget 

^  There  is  no  anachronism  here.  We  are  not  to  ihinkof  the  eighteenth- 
century  clerk  on  the  lowest  stage  of  a  "  three-decker."  Responses  were 
necessary  in  many  Catholic  services,  where  a  responding  congregation 
could  not  be  relied  on.  Such  responses  were  repeated  by  a  "  clerk,"  who 
might  have  other  duties  as  well. 


THE   BIBLE   IN   EUROPE  59 

that  love  for  doctrinal  controversy,  as  a  joy  in  itself,  so 
characteristic  of  the  Puritan  and  Presbyterian  temper  at 
home.  So  that  Luther's  vigorous  version,  roughly  speaK- 
ing  contemporary  with  Tyndale's,  did  not  find  a  middle 
class  and  peasantry  so  eager  for  weapons  of  theological 
strife  as  did  the  latter.  For  it  should  not  be  forgotten 
that,  while  earlier  German  translations  of  the  Bible  had 
been  made,  none  of  them  had  anything  like  the  power 
over  the  people  at  large  which  was  wielded  by  WycliiFe's 
version,  or  WycliiFe's  poor  preachers. 

The  interest  excited  in  recent  times  among  the  religious 
public  of  England  by  pre-Reformation  literature,  by  the 
sermons  of  Tauler^  and  the  story  of  the  Mystics,  and 
"  the  Friends  of  God,"  has  led  to  an  exaggerated  idea  of 
the  extent  to  which  the  masses  of  the  people  in  Europe 
before  the  Reformation  were  leavened  with  religious  feel- 
ing in  the  form  of  individual  conviction  or  aspiration. 
But  surely  the  congregations  that  thronged  to  hear  Tauler 
preach,  vast  though  they  might  appear  to  his  enthusiastic 
disciples,  could  not  constitute  one-thousandth  part  of  the 
population  of  Central  Europe.  And  the  intense  earnest- 
ness of  aspiration,  combined  with  an  approximation — 
though  only  an  approximation — to  pantheistic  insight,  in 
the    Theologica    Germanka^    suggests    the    existence    of 

1  It  is  surely  noteworthy  that  in  the  Golden  A  B  C^  which  Tauler's 
instructor  gave  him  to  study,  the  only  reference,  if  such  it  can  be  called, 
to  Scripture,  is  "  Christ  our  Blessed  Lord's  life  and  death  shall  ye  follow, 
and  wholly  conform  yourself  thereunto  with  all  your  might."  But  this 
may  obviously  have  referred  to  the  tradition  of  the  Church,  together  with 
the  gospel  readings  in  the  Mass.  Imagine  a  modern  Protestant  teacher 
giving  to  a  disciple  a  religious  "Alphabet"  in  which  there  should  have 
been  no  reference,  other  than  these  doubtful  words,  to  the  diligent  study 
of  the  Bible ! 

2  The  best  opinions  seem  to  be  strongly  against  ,the  attribution  of  that 
remarkable  book  to  Tauler. 


6o  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

small  coteries  of  esoteric  believers  rather  than  any  com- 
prehensive wave  of  popular  zeal.  And  though  of  course 
Luther's  version  of  the  Bible,  when  it  afterwards  appeared, 
was  eagerly  sought  after  by  all  anti-papal  men  and  women 
who  could  read,  these  could  not  be  anything  like  a  majority 
of  the  German  population.  Indeed,  certain  terrible  features 
of  the  Anabaptist  uprising  and  the  Peasant  Revolt  show 
that  political  and  social  wrongs,  much  more  than  any  re- 
ligious convictions,  were  the  cause  of  those  horrors. 
Whatever  view  may  be  taken  of  the  political  aims  of  the 
British  Puritans,  the  tendency  of  impartial  scholarly 
opinion,  conspicuously  represented  by  the  late  Dr  S.  R. 
Gardiner,  has  been  toward  a  favourable  judgment  on  the 
moral  tone  of  the  Cromwellian  armies,  and  their  modera- 
tion in  the  use  of  the  laws  of  war  then  prevalent.^  But 
it  is  questionable  whether  Oliver  could  in  any  Continental 
country  have  recruited  20,000  or  30,000  men  who,  in 
his  sense  of  the  words,  "  had  the  fear  of  God  before  them, 
and  made  some  conscience  of  what  they  did."  Certainly 
it  would  have  been  impossible  anywhere  but  in  Britain  to 
collect  a  warrior  host  of  whom  every  man  was  as  ready  to 
expound  the  Bible  in  his  left  hand  as  to  wield  the  sword 
in  his  right. 

It  is  scarcely  probable  that  in  the  nineteenth  century 
the  Bible  was  less  widely  distributed  among  the  people  of 
Europe  than  in  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth,  or  seventeenth 
centuries.  But  on  inquiry  being  made  by  the  British 
and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  early  in  the  course  of  its  opera- 
tions, the  dearth  of  Bibles  on  the  Continent  was  considered 
appalling.  Thus  it  was  found  that  in  Lithuania,  18,000 
German  families  were  without  a  Bible,  as  also  7800  Polish 

^  The   slaughter    at    Wexford    and    Drogheda    was    exceptional,   and 
evidently  haunted  Cromwell's  conscience. 


THE   BIBLE   IN   MUNSTER  6i 

and  7000  Lithuanian  families.  One-half  of  the  popula- 
tion of  Holland  was  said  to  be  without  the  Scriptures. 
In  the  district  of  Dorpat  (Esthonia)  containing  106,000 
inhabitants,  not  200  Testaments  were  to  be  found  :  and 
there  were  Christian  pastors  who,  content  with  their 
knowledge  of  the  original,  did  not  possess  the  Bible  in 
the  vernacular  which  they  used  in  preaching.^  If  this 
was  the  case  in  the  nineteenth  century,  what  must  have 
been  the  scarcity  in  the  sixteenth  ! 

The  Bible  carried  through  the  streets  of  Milnster 
before  John  Bockholdt,  the  insane  claimant  to  the  throne 
of  David,  was  merely  a  fetish,  from  which  people 
driven  mad  by  oppression  expected  the  same  sort  of 
salvation  as  the  African  savage  expects  from  his  blood- 
smeared  idol.  Matthias,  a  fanatic  of  heroic  mould,  knew 
the  story  of  Gideon,  and  lost  his  life  apparently  through 
his  confidence  that  a  renewal  of  the  exploit  related  therein 
only  required  sufficient  faith.  But  it  is  doubtful  whether 
he  or  Bockholdt  could  read  ;  and  the  probability  is  that 
the  parts  of  Scripture  which  they  subjected  to  such 
amazing  misconstruction,  were  known  to  them  only 
orally  through  the  readings  in  their  religious  services — 
if  such  the  ceremonies  can  be  called  which  so  rapidly 
degenerated  into  orgies.  While  as  to  the  wild  multi- 
tudes who  poured  into  Mtlnster  with  the  idea  that  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  was  at  hand,  their  knowledge  must 
have  been  confined  to  mere  catchwords  and  phrases  that 
had  been  transformed  into  the  incantations  of  diseased 
brains. 

Perhaps  it  may  be   said  with   some  justice   that  this 

1  See  Encyclo.  Brit.^  9th  edition,  s.v.  "Bible."  I  have  reason  to 
believe  that  the  particulars  above  quoted  were  confirmed  by  the 
Society. 


62  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

sudden  madness  was  a  Nemesis  on  the  obscurantist  policy 
of  the  Catholic  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  withhold- 
ing from  the  multitude  a  Book  that  stored  up  the 
spiritual  experience  of  ages  ;  which  counselled  patience, 
and  rebuked  all  rash  anticipations  of  God's  purpose. 
"  Woe  unto  them  ....  that  say.  Let  him  make 
speed  and  hasten  his  work,  that  we  may  see  it  ;  and  let 
the  counsel  of  the  Holy  One  of  Israel  draw  nigh  and 
come,  that  we  may  know  it  !  "  The  benevolent  advocates 
of  the  Bible  for  the  people  have  been  perfectly  justified 
in  claiming  for  the  Book  a  power  of  inspiring  common 
men  with  moral  ideals.  But  it  is  always  implied  that  the 
attainment  of  those  ideals  is  subject  to  a  divine  order, 
and  that  "  patience  "  must  "  have  her  perfect  work."  Nor 
does  it  require  any  belief  in  the  supernatural  origin  of 
the  Bible  to  justify  the  opinion  that  the  comparative 
order  and  moderation  of  the  Puritan  revolution  in 
England  was  owing,  at  least  in  some  measure,  to  the  fact 
that,  whether  by  hearing  or  by  reading,  a  larger  proportion 
of  the  population  was  familiar  with  the  Scriptures  than 
could  be  the  case  elsewhere.  Yet,  as  already  remarked, 
the  veto  of  the  Catholic  Church  upon  the  free  use  of  the 
Bible  by  the  laity  originated  not  in  any  ecclesiastical 
irreverence  for  "  God's  word  written,"  but  much  more  in 
an  exaggerated  and  superstitious  awe.  For  that  Word 
was  held  to  be  too  holy  and  divine  a  thing  to  be  handled 
by  the  profane  mob.  It  is  indeed  possible,  or  even 
probable,  that  this  superstitious  awe  was  intensified 
by  experience  of  the  heretical  tendencies  of  Bible 
readers.  But  ecclesiastics  anxious  for  the  purity  of 
the  faith  might  plead  scriptural  precedent  for  caution 
in  entrusting  to  the  "  unlearned  and  unstable "  a 
Book  that   contained  things   "  hard   to    be   understood " 


HEROISM   OF  EARLY  BIBLE  PREACHERS    6^ 

and  liable  to  be  wrested  to  the  destruction  of  the 
readers.^ 

This  was  the  attitude  of  the  Church  in  the  Middle 
Ages  toward  the  Bible  and  the  people  ;  and  there  is  no 
more  conspicuous  proof  of  the  courage  and  faith  of 
WyclifFe  and  his  followers  than  the  daring  with  which 
they  confronted  this  ban.  Their  perils  are  best  under- 
stood by  some  frank  confessions  of  the  more  timid 
among  them.  "  Brother,"  wrote  one  such  in  answer  to 
a  request  for  a  plainer  exposition  of  God's  word  to  the 
simple,  "  I  knowe  wel  that  I  am  holde(n)  by  Cryste's 
la  we  to  performe  thyn  axinge,  bote  notheless  we  beth^  now 
so  far  yfallen  awey  from  Criste's  lawe,  that  if  I  wolde 
answere  to  thyn  axingus^  I  moste  in  cas  vnderfonge  the 
deth*  ;  and  thu  wost^  wel  that  a  man  is  yholden^  to  kepe 
his  lyf  as  longe  as  he  may.  And  perawnter^  it  is  spedfuP 
to  holden  oure  pes^  awhile,  tyl  that  God  foucheth  saf^° 
that  his  wille  be  yknowe."^^ 

Under  such  circumstances,  nothing  but  the  imperious 
voice  of  God  within  the  soul  could  inspire  mortal  man  to 
confront  falsehood  incarnated  in  worldly  power.  Now 
in  the  fourteenth  century  this  inspiration  was  felt  more 
keenly  in  England  than  in  any  other  part  of  Christendom. 
On  the  continent  of  Europe,  indeed,  there  were  reformers 
before  the  Reformation,  and  their  devotional  utterances, 
their   aspirations,  and   even    their    mystical    speculations, 

1  2  Peter  iii.  i6.  By  the  Council  of  Toulouse  (1229)  "no  layman  was 
permitted  to  have  any  book  of  the  Old  or  New  Testament,  especially  in 
a  translation,  unless  perhaps  a  Psalter"  (Milman's  Latin  Christianity ^ 
iv.,  p.  239). 

^  Are.  2  Askings.  ^  I  must  run  the  risk  of  death. 

^  Wottest,  knowest.      ^  Bound.  ^  Peradventure. 

^  Expedient.  ^  Peace.  ^^  Vouchsafeth. 

"  Quoted  by  Forshall  and  Madden  in  their  preface  to  Wyclifife's  Bible, 
p.  XV. 


64  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

have  profound  interest.  But  the  practical  moral  power 
that  shakes  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places,  was  at 
that  time  reaHsed  most  conspicuously  by  Wycliffe  and 
his  preachers  to  the  poor.  What,  then,  was  the  occasion 
of  this  distinction  ?  The  inevitable  answer  is  that  here 
were  brought  most  obviously  and  closely  into  co-operation 
the  open  Bible  and  the  prophetic  voice. 

Yet  such  an  explanation  does  not  in  the  least  assume 
that  miracle  or  revelation  triumphed  over  natural  law. 
And  a  right  understanding  of  what  really  did  occur  is 
of  much  importance  to  a  just  appreciation  of  the  true 
relations  between  man  and  the  Bible.  The  Church  at 
that  time  had  fallen  into  a  condition  of  moral  degradation 
scarcely  to  be  paralleled  even  in  the  clouded  history  of 
her  past.  For  so  far  was  she  then  from  representing 
and  maintaining  the  spiritual  or  moral  ideals  of  the 
Gospels  and  the  ethical  exhortations  in  the  Epistles,  that 
she  suspected,  rebuked,  and  punished  every  slightest 
movement  among  priesthood  or  laity  toward  a  higher 
life  than  that  of  passive  obedience  and  correct  ceremonial. 
Whence,  then,  did  Wycliffe  and  his  followers  derive  the 
light  and  the  power  which  made  them  pioneers — I  will 
not  say  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  but  rather — of  the  spiritual 
emancipation  dawning  now  ?  Surely  they  were  stimulated 
to  a  larger  faith  by  the  amazing  contrast  between  the 
words  of  the  Lord  Jesus  as  interpreted  by  the  ethics  of 
St  Paul,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  worldly  wisdom 
of  the  Church. 

Of  course  we  are  not  to  forget  the  subsidiary  causes 
which  helped  the  purely  moral  revolt.  For  bitter  political 
discontent  was  caused  by  the  greed  of  Rome,  and  by  the 
alienation  of  national  resources  to  private  advantage, 
an     alienation     so     grandly     denounced     in     death     by 


THE   WYCLIFFE   MOVEMENT  65 

Shakespeare's  John  of  Gaunt.  But  this  only  gave  the 
opportunity  to  the  prophet,  and  could  not  kindle  his 
sacred  fire.  The  terrible  gloom  of  the  Black  Death, 
which  seemed  to  herald  the  Judgment  Day,  must  indeed 
have  brought  the  people  face  to  face  with  "  the  powers 
of  the  world  to  come."  But  unvarying  experience  proves 
that  such  horrors  drive  men  only  to  more  assiduous 
fetishism.  They  do  not,  except  in  rare  instances  of 
solitary  souls,  already  enlightened,  awaken  men  to  higher 
thoughts  of  destiny  and  God.  Whatever,  then,  may  have 
been  the  effect  of  that  horrible  pestilence  upon  WyclifFe,^ 
who  was  still  a  youth  when  the  plague  swept  away  nearly 
half  the  people  of  the  land,  it  was,  in  itself,  much  more 
likely  to  drive  men  into  the  arms  of  heaven's  alleged  vice- 
gerents, than  to  awaken  them  to  a  more  spiritual  faith.^ 
Still,  the  rebellion  of  the  Barons  against  the  exactions  of 
the  Papacy,  and  the  moral  degradation  of  the  Church, 
did  offer  to  a  man  like  Wycliffe  a  favourable  opportunity 
for  turning  the  resentment  of  the  people  to  the  exaltation 
of  their  spiritual  life.  His  popularisation  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  his  direct  appeal  to  it,  had  three  beneficial 
effects.  First,  it  showed  that  the  exaggerated  ceremonial 
and  hierarchical  pretensions  of  the  contemporary  Church 
had  no  justification  in  the  primitive  Church  records. 
Secondly,  it  awakened  the  unlearned  to  the  fact  that 
Jesus  and  his  Apostles  taught  the  immediate  sovereignty 
of  God  over  each  soul,  without  any  intervention  of  the 
priest.  And  finally,  it  displayed  to  the  conscience  a 
religious    morahty,    not    only    inconsistent,    but    totally 

^  Forshall  and  Madden  suggest  the  plague  as  a  reason  why  Wydiffe's 
first  effort  to  popularise  Scripture  dealt  with  the  Book  of  Revelation. 

2  The  recent  earthquake  in  Sicily  affords  a  painful  confirmation  of  the 
above.  For,  according  to  eye-witnesses,  the  influence  of  unreasoning 
terror  has  driven  the  poor  survivors  to  renewed  zeal  for  superstitious  rites. 

5 


66  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

incommensurable,  with  the  example  and  teachings  of  the 
Church. 

Herein,  surely,  lay  an  immense  difference  between  the 
proposed,  but  unaccomplished,  reforms  of  Wycliffe  and 
the  inferior,  though  realised,  work  of  Luther.  For  the 
controversial  athlete  of  Erfurt  concentrated  almost  all 
his  dogged  force  on  the  rescue  and  maintenance  of  one 
Pauline  doctrine,  justification  by  faith,  while  he  was 
blind  to  the  incongruity  with  spiritual  religion  of  a 
fetishistic  interpretation  of  the  Lord's  Supper.-^  Thus, 
"  hoc  est  corpus  meum  "  was,  to  him,  a  fixed  bound,  not  less 
impassable  to  his  thought  than  the  angles  of  the  pentagram 
to  Mephistopheles.  Very  different  was  the  position  of 
Wycliffe,  though  the  difference  is  manifest  in  spirit, 
temper,  and  outlook  rather  than  in  creed.  His  open  and 
express  repudiation  of  the  physical  miracle  supposed  to  be 
wrought  in  every  Mass,  was  indeed  a  significant  diver- 
gence as  well  from  the  obstinate  opinion  of  Luther  as 
from  contemporary  belief.  Otherwise  the  opinions  of 
Wycliffe  on  the  supremacy  of  Scripture  and  the  con- 
ditions of  salvation  agreed  generally  with  the  Lutheran 
creed  of  the  future.  But  though  Wycliffe  followed  St 
Paul  in  teaching  the  value  of  faith,  he  certainly  did  not 
give  to  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone  the 
disproportionate  place  afterwards  assigned  to  it.  His 
sense  of  the  value  of  the  Bible  seems  to  have  been  both 
wider  and  more  spiritual  than  that  of  the  German 
reformer.  For  it  was  not  to  him  a  repertory  of  magic 
spells  insuring  deliverance  from  Satan  or  hell,  it  was 
rather  a  fountain  of  living  water  distinguished   from   all 

1  I  do  not  forget  the  innumerable  names  of  real  saints  that  may  be 
arrayed  against  this  observation.  But  it  was  not  the  only  remnant  of 
fetishism  which  they  transmuted  by  the  glamour  of  unreasoning  faith, 


EFFECT   ON   THE   COMMON   PEOPLE    67 

the  broken  cisterns  of  secular  lore  by  its  refreshing  and 
inspiring  power. 

If  we  could  but  realise  for  ourselves  the  mental  and 
spiritual  condition  of  the  nameless  multitude  in  that 
gloomy  age,  their  oppressions  by  Crown  and  Church,  their 
life  of  earthly  terror  and  dread  of  coming  judgment,  their 
intellectual  destitution,  their  squalid  lives,  relieved  only 
by  occasional  echoes  of  heaven  in  the  Church  services, — 
we  should  be  able  to  understand  how  WyclifFe's  tracts  and 
his  English  New  Testament,  illumined  by  the  fervour  of 
his  preachers,  awoke  in  them  visions  of  a  new  world. 

Langland's  Piers  Plowman  had  already  stirred  them. 
Chaucer  was  in  his  prime  ;  and  his  merry  lines  about 
pardoners  and  abbots  were,  no  doubt,  recited  by  the 
few  who  could  read  to  the  many  who  could  not.  So, 
when  blessings  on  the  poor,  and  on  the  hunger  for  right 
and  on  love  and  brotherhood  fell  in  full  melody  of 
English  words  from  the  pages  of  the  New  Testament  on 
the  ears  strained  to  hear  the  Sovereign  of  the  soul,  the 
common  people,  as  of  old,  heard  gladly.  For  those 
words  were  felt  to  have  an  authority  dependent  on  neither 
priest  nor  king. 

How  far  the  Miracle  plays  of  the  fourteenth  and 
perhaps  the  thirteenth  centuries  may  have  helped  the 
work  of  WyclifFe  by  familiarising  an  unschooled  multi- 
tude with  at  least  the  chief  events  of  Bible  story,  it  is 
difficult  to  judge.  At  least  they  were  popular,  and  were 
performed  by  travelling  players,  for  whose  arrival  each 
town  or  village  was  prepared  by  such  rude  modes  of 
advertisement  as  were  then  in  vogue.  "  The  intended 
exhibition,"  says  Edward  Clodd,  in  a  series  of  papers 
showing  much  research,^  "was  announced  by  proclamation 
*  Printed  in  Knowledge^  1885. 


68  MAN    AND   THE   BIBLE 

or  hane — a  word  retained  in  our  *  marriage  banns  ' — made 
by  three  heralds  with  sound  of  trumpet."  The  authors 
of  the  homely  doggerel  which  formed  the  text  of  these 
plays  were  not  at  any  pains  to  quote  or  adapt  the  very 
words  of  Scripture,  though  here  and  there,  of  course,  a 
phrase  or  two  was  made  available.  Of  possible  edifica- 
tion little  can  be  said  ;  for,  obviously,  the  main  purpose 
was  amusement.  Wycliffe  complained  that  the  Devil 
was  the  most  popular  impersonation,^  and  occasionally 
some  of  the  plays  degenerated  into  downright  buffoonery. 
But  for  all  that,  it  is  likely  enough  that  these  Miracle 
plays  helped  to  familiarise  the  untaught  many  with 
Scripture  story,  and  to  form  that  Bible  habit  of  which 
Wycliffe  and  succeeding  popular  teachers  availed  them- 
selves in  their  efforts  to  teach  higher  truth. 

Mt   is   noteworthy  that   on   a  grander  scale,  and  in  purer  forms  ot 
imagination,  the  same  thing  remains  true,  as  in  Paradise  Lost  and  Faust. 


The  absence  of  any  reference  to  the  work  of  Dr  James  Gairdner,  C.B., 
on  Lollardy  a?id  the  Reformation  in  England^  is  explained  by  the  fact 
that  the  whole  of  my  book  was  written,  and  the  greater  part  printed, 
before  I  had  the  advantage  of  consulting  that  scholarly  and  instructive 
treatise.  If  I  had  seen  Dr  Gairdner's  book  soon  enough  I  should  have 
discussed  some  of  the  points  he  raises.  But  I  cannot  say  that  I  should 
have  made  any  alterations  of  consequence.  His  criticisms  of  the  in- 
accuracies of  Foxe,  the  Martyrologist,  appear  to  be  well  grounded.  But 
they  are  such  as  to  be  quite  consistent  with  Dr  Gairdner's  own  generous 
acknowledgment  of  that  enthusiast's  sincerity.  Though  the  learned 
writer  seems  disposed  in  some  of  his  pages  to  minimise  the  effect  of 
the  Lollard  tradition  in  the  English  Reformation,  I  am  quite  satisfied 
with  the  paragraph  on  p.  328  (Book  II.  chap,  ii.),  where  the  revival  of 
Lollardy  by  the  publication  of  Tyndale's  New  Testament  is  acknowledged. 
I  need  scarcely  add  that  I  cannot  attach  to  Church  law  and  order  the 
predominant  importance  which  this  distinguished  writer  does. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    BIBLE    IN    THE    LATER    MIDDLE    AGE 

When  in  our  backward  survey  we  reach  the  thirteenth 
century,  we  enter  on  the  age  of  the  preaching  friars,  whose 
novel  methods  were  evoked  by  the  alarming  spread  of 
heresy  over  the  south  of  France,  and  across  the  Alps,  in 
an  audacious  advance  toward  Rome  itself.  For  nearly 
900  years — ever  since  the  imperial  decree  subjecting 
Hilarius,  Archbishop  of  Aries,  to  the  spiritual  supremacy 
of  Rome — the  Gallic  provinces  out  of  which  modern 
France  was  gradually  evolved  had,  notwithstanding  some 
efforts  to  assert  a  national  Christianity,  generally  acknow- 
ledged the  claim  of  the  Popes  to  inherit  the  supposed 
primacy  of  St  Peter.  The  adhesion  of  the  Franks  under 
Clovis  to  the  Catholic  Church  ensured  the  expulsion  of 
Arianism  from  the  region  of  their  conquests,  and  gave 
to  orthodoxy  in  the  future  France  a  preponderance  which 
was,  on  the  whole,  steadfastly  maintained  until  the  Revolu- 
tion. But  one  of  the  incidental  results  of  the  Crusades,  a 
freer  intercourse  between  East  and  West,  had  introduced 
into  Southern  France  and  Savoy  many  survivors  of  a 
persecuted  sect  originally  domiciled  on  the  borders  of 
Armenia,  but  afterwards  transferred  by  imperial  policy  to 

Bulgaria,  whence  they  found  their  way  to  Western  lands. 

69 


70  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

This  sect  was  that  of  the  Paulicians,  of  whom  Gibbon 
in  his  great  history  gives  a  rapid  but  vivid  sketch.  The 
substantial  accuracy  of  that  sketch  has  been  generally 
acknowledged  by  competent  judges  in  more  recent  times. 
My  purpose,  however,  does  not  require  me  to  repeat  that 
story  at  any  length,  but  only  to  note  such  incidents  as 
illustrate  the  relations  of  Man  and  the  Bible  at  certain 
crises  in  the  history  of  the  sect.  Thus  I  postpone  until 
our  retrospect  reaches  the  ninth  century,  such  slight 
examination  as  space  permits  of  Gibbon's  authorities,  and 
must  content  myself  here  with  premising  my  conviction 
that  the  Albigenses  and  Waldenses  who,  in  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries  appealed  from  Rome  to  the  New 
Testament,  were  the  spiritual  successors  of  the  Paulicians. 
The  latter,  at  the  time  of  their  origin,  appear  to  have 
possessed  only  a  part  of  the  sacred  books.  But  their 
appeal  from  the  Church  of  their  day  was  practically  the 
same.  It  is  also  noteworthy  that  both  the  older  and 
the  later  sect  were  stigmatised  by  their  opponents  as 
Manichaeans.^ 

A  discussion  of  Manichceism  scarcely  comes  within  the  scope  of  this 
work,  but  I  should  fail  to  interest  readers  whom  I  am  very  anxious  to 
reach  if  I  did  not  give  here  some  explanation  of  the  term.  The  foolish 
zeal  of  the  orthodox  in  the  destruction  of  heretical  books  has  left  the  origin 
of  the  sect  in  much  obscurity.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the  name 
Mane,  from  which  it  is  derived,  ever  belonged  to  an  individual  man.  It 
is  certainly  of  Persian  origin,  and  probably  akin  to  the  word  "  Mene,"  or 
rather  "  Mane,"  in  the  writing  on  the  wall  of  Belshazzar's  palace.  True, 
the  first  syllable  had  only  a  semi-vowel  in  the  Aramaic  text ;  but  in  the 
Septuagint  and  in  other  Greek  renderings  it  is  navn.  The  root  significance 
seems  to  be  "number"  or  "measurement"  or  "enumeration."  I  can 
conceive  that  the  name  might  be  very  naturally  applied  to  a  school  of 
mystic  philosophy,  derived  from  the  Magians,  and  brooding  in  obscurity, 
until  after  the  Christian  era  it  attached  itself  like  a  foreign  parasite  to  a 
spiritual  organism  which  could  never  have  given  it  birth.  The  main 
principle  of  Manichaeism  was  akin  to,  though  not  identical  with,  the 
doctrine  of  Zoroaster  concerning  light  and  darkness.     These  two  opposing 


THE   ALBIGENSES  71 

The  name  Albigenses,  by  which  the  French  anti- 
sacerdotalists  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  are 
generally  distinguished,  is  of  territorial  origin.^  For  the 
district  around  Alby  (or  Albi)  had  once  been  known  as 
the  Albigensian  region,  and  with  this  country  they  were 
popularly  associated.  But  in  other  districts  and  in 
Savoy  they  were  known  by  several  other  names,  such  as 
Cathari  (Puritans),  Paterini  (a  name  of  uncertain  meaning), 
Tisserands  (as  being  of  the  working  class  and  largely 
weavers)  ;  in  later  times,  Vaudois  (from  the  place  of  their 
refuge).  The  religious  movement  of  the  Waldenses  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth  century  was  apparently 
continuous  with  that  of  the  Albigenses,  though  the  name 
was  derived  from  a  personal  leader.  From  a  survey  of 
the  whole  facts,  it  seems  the   most    obvious    conclusion 

powers  were  alike  eternal.  All  matter  belonged  to  the  kingdom  of  dark- 
ness. The  power  of  light  was  the  spiritual  god  who  could  not  come  into 
contact  with  matter.  By  some  obscure  complications,  which  one  need 
not  even  try  to  understand,  the  realm  of  darkness  encroached  on  the 
realm  of  light.  Hence  all  the  miseries  of  human  history.  There  could 
be  no  salvation  but  by  complete  emancipation  from  matter.  When 
Manichaeism  affixed  itself  to  Christianity,  it  inevitably  mutilated  the 
Apostolic  Creed.  Thus  it  relegated  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  to 
the  realm  of  darkness,  and  to  the  "  Demiurgus,"  by  whose  inspiration  the 
bloody  sacrifices,  crimes,  and  massacres  of  old  Jewish  times  were  caused. 
The  divine  Father  of  Jesus  was  the  spiritual  God  of  the  realm  of  light. 
But  the  Christ,  the  Word,  the  Emanation  from  the  spiritual  God,  was 
never  contaminated  by  a  "  virgin  birth  "  or  union  with  flesh  and  blood. 
Nevertheless  the  human  Jesus  served  to  manifest  the  Word  or  Emanation. 
But  only  those  followed  him  truly  who  sought  emancipation  from  matter, 
who  abstained  from  marriage,  and  who  practised  certain  other  doctrines 
of  asceticism.  The  orthodox  accusations  of  entirely  opposite  practices  may 
be  true,  or  partly  true.  We  cannot  tell.  But  the  above  is  the  general 
theory  of  Manichaeism,  as  far  as  it  can  be  gathered  from  a  welter  of 
obscurities  and  contradictions. 

1  The  opinion  of  Mosheim,  that  the  name  is  derived  from  the  Council  of 
Alby,  held  for  the  purpose  of  condemning  them,  can  hardly  be  sustained 
even  by  his  authority.  Can  we  imagine  the  Hussites  being  called  Con- 
stantians  from  the  Council  of  Constance  t 


72  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

that  all  these  names  were  attached  to  different  phases 
or  different  local  manifestations  of  the  same  spiritual 
rebellion  against  hierarchical  authority  in  favour  of 
recurrence  to  a  more  primitive  tradition,  or,  where 
possible,  to  the  actual  recorded  words  of  Jesus  and  his 
first  disciples.  Nor  should  I  be  at  all  incHned  to  dispute 
the  theory  that  these  protesters  against  sacerdotalism  were 
in  various  degrees,  at  some  crises,  moved  by  an  awful 
sense  of  direct  personal  access  to  the  one  eternal  source 
of  inspiration  in  the  very  life  of  God.  Of  this  conscious- 
ness various  explanations  may  be  given  by  different 
schools  of  thought.  But  that  it  was  real  to  the  persons 
affected,  and  often  productive  of  unselfish  devotion  and 
fruitful  heroism,  there  can  be  no  doubt.^ 

Out  of  all  these  forms  of  one  movement  I  select 
the  Waldenses  for  brief  attention,  because  their  story 
illustrates  best  the  place  of  the  Bible  in  such  spiritual 
uprisings.  In  their  case  only  are  we  allowed  to  know 
any  particulars  as  to  the  modes  in  which  ignorant  and 
unlearned  men  "  obtained  access  to  the  Scriptures  which 
the  Church  was  now  guarding  with  the  jealousy  of  fear." 
But  about  the  origin  of  the  special  Waldensian  movement 
our  information  seems  good.  Peter  Waldo,  a  rich 
merchant  of  Lyons,  who  lived  during  the  latter  half  of 
the  twelfth  century,  seems  to  have  fallen  in  some  way 
under  the  influence  of  the  revivalists  from  the  East. 
In  his  case  it  was  spiritual  regeneration  that  stimulated 
his  hunger  for  the  Word  of  God,  rather  than  Bible- 
reading,  which  led  to  his  conversion.  At  the  same 
time  it  is  probable  that  what  he  heard  from  the  revivalists 

1  The  anti-sacerdotal  movement  was  not  confined  to  Southern  France. 
In  Northern  France  and  Flanders  it  assumed  wild  forms,  in  some  respects 
anticipating  the  Anabaptist  excesses  of  the  sixteenth  century. 


THE   POOR   MEN   OF  LYONS  73 

was  confirmed  by  so  much  as  he  could  understand  of  the 
words  of  Scripture  embodied  in  Church  ceremony.  But 
it  seems  certain  that,  rich  though  he  was,  no  money 
could  procure  him  any  existing  vernacular  translations  of 
the  Bible.  His  only  course  was  to  pay  a  clerk  in  orders 
to  translate  parts  of  the  holy  book  for  him.  Thus  he 
succeeded  in  obtaining  a  version  of  the  Psalms  and  of 
the  Gospels,  perhaps  also  of  other  parts  of  the  Old 
Testament,  in  addition  to  the  Psalms. 

The  presentation  of  such  a  priceless  gift  to  his  fellow- 
believers  gave  him  a  position  comparable  to  that  of  a  rich, 
pious,  and  liberal  Nonconformist  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  his  own  denomination.  But,  alas  !  the  cir- 
cumstances were  different.  For  his  leadership,  instead 
of  bringing  him  popularity,  robbed  his  earthly  life  of  all 
ease.  That  he  had  the  Gospel  instinct  of  devotion  to  the 
poor,  is  sufficiently  shown  by  one  of  the  names  bestowed 
on  his  followers,  "  The  Poor  Men  of  Lyons."  And  the 
innocent  audacity  with  which  religion  can  inspire  the  poor 
was  shown  by  the  appearance  of  two  of  his  spiritual 
brethren  before  the  Pope  in  the  Lateran  Council,  bearing 
in  their  hands  their  fragmentary  version  of  the  Scriptures. 
That  they  had  no  idea  of  "  schism  "  is  shown  by  their 
plea  for  permission  to  preach  the  Gospel  as  they  knew  it 
and  felt  it.  Their  knowledge  of  the  Bible  astonished 
some  ecclesiastics  in  the  Council.  But,  needless  to  say, 
the  desired  permission  was  refused.  Prohibition,  however, 
did  not  daunt  them,  and  they  returned  to  continue 
their  mission.  The  Archbishop  of  Lyons  then  charged 
them,  on  their  allegiance  to  the  Church,  to  discontinue 
their  work  ;  and  in  their  own  view  they  were  thus 
called  upon  to  choose  between  eternal  and  temporary 
law.     But  such  men  could  have  no  hesitation  ;   and  they 


74  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

were  involved  in  the  frightful  persecution  which  inflicted 
on  the  south  of  France  more  slaughter,  rapine,  and  misery 
than  the  hordes  of  Huns  or  the  fanatics  of  Islam. 

The  authorities  of  the  Church,  however,  regarded  the 
issue  of  the  Scriptures  in  a  vernacular  translation  as  a 
danger  justifying  precautions  such  as  would  have  been 
thought  cruel  and  barbarous  if  employed  only  against 
pestilence  or  famine.  The  Council  of  Toulouse  in  1229 
went  so  far  as  to  prohibit  to  laymen  even  the  possession 
of  the  Vulgate  version,  but  especially  anathematised  the 
vernacular.  An  exception  was  indeed  made  in  favour  of 
the  Psalms,  canticles,  and  glosses,  to  assist  the  illiterate 
in  following  the  Church  services.  Otherwise  the  posses- 
sion of  any  portion  of  the  Bible  in  the  mother  tongue  of 
the  people  was  considered  as  presumptive  proof  of  heresy. 
And  to  make  sure  of  the  detection  of  this  blight  in  its 
first  germs,  the  inhuman  system  of  the  Inquisition  was  at 
this  time  elaborated  in  all  its  terrors.  Its  horrors,  how- 
ever, are  no  part  of  my  story  here.  It  is  sufficient  to 
note  that  ecclesiastical  experience  of  the  power  of  the 
Bible  over  simple  souls  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the 
chief  motives  inciting  a  system  of  draconic  repression, 
shadowy  espionage,  exasperating  tests,  insidious  traps, 
cruel  tortures,  and  savage  punishment  perhaps  unrivalled, 
certainly  never  surpassed,  in  all  the  history  of  religious 
crime. 

A  more  legitimate  method  of  combating  heresy  was 
conceived  almost  contemporaneously  in  Spain  and  in  Italy 
by  Dominic  and  Francis  of  Assisi.  They  founded  orders 
of  preaching  friars,  devoted  to  absolute  poverty,  and 
living  for  no  other  end  than  to  confirm  the  faithful  and 
to  bring  back  wanderers  from  the  fold.  Innocent  III. 
showed  more  worldly  wisdom  than  his  predecessor,  whom 


DOMINICANS   AND   FRANCISCANS        75 

the  Poor  Men  of  Lyons  had  petitioned  for  permission  to 
preach,  and  the  Papal  sanction  for  the  new  orders  was 
obtained.  Had  the  founders  exerted  their  moral  authority 
to  rebuke  the  unholy  violence  of  their  allies  in  the 
crusade,  their  fame  might  have  been  spotless  ;  for  we  do 
not  judge  men  by  their  theological  opinions  now.  But, 
unfortunately,  we  are  not  able  to  credit  either  of  them 
with  more  than  a  superficial  regret  for  what  they  regarded 
as  an  imperious  need  for  the  secular  arm.  Indeed,  in 
the  case  of  Dominic,  we  may  doubt  the  existence  even  of 
regret.  It  was  on  descending  from  the  Pyrenees  as 
companion  to  a  bishop  on  a  political  mission  that  Dominic 
was  appalled  by  the  prevalence  of  so-called  "  Manichaeism  " 
in  Provence.  On  the  first  night  he  is  said  to  have 
converted  his  heretic  ho^t  by  legitimate  argument.  But 
what  interests  us  more  is  his  appeal  to  the  Bible.  For, 
though  the  story  of  it  survives  in  the  guise  of  a  ridiculous 
miracle,  it  may  very  well,  like  other  miracles,  be  suggestive 
of  fact.  It  is  said,  then,  that  a  schedule  of  Scripture  proofs 
jotted  down  by  him  for  a  particular  conference,  leaped  out 
of  the  fire  where  it  had  fallen  or  been  thrown,  while  a 
similar  trial  of  the  notes  of  his  opponents  reduced  their 
fallacies  to  ash.  Thus  it  would  appear  that,  even  where 
the  secular  arm  was  available  for  the  defence  of  the  faith, 
appeal  was  first  made  to  the  Bible.  But  whether  Scrip- 
ture or  reason  was  made  the  court  of  appeal,  it  was  in 
those  days,  as  indeed  it  is  often  now,  with  the  reservation 
that  only  one  verdict  would  be  received. 

The  figure  of  St  Francis  of  Assisi  has  a  halo  of  brotherly 
kindness  and  glorified  humanity  around  it  such  that  it 
might  seem  almost  a  sacrilege  to  associate  him  with  the 
helHsh  deeds  of  the  Inquisition.  But,  though  he  certainly 
did  not  take  an  equal  part  with  Dominic  in  the  organisa- 


76  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

tion  of  that  horrible  system,  we  have  not,  so  far  as  I 
know,  any  record  of  a  protest  on  his  part  against  it.  At 
the  same  time  it  must  be  conceded  to  him  that  he  was  as 
ready  to  face  persecution  for  himself  as  to  acquiesce  in  its 
infliction  on  others,  which  he  showed  by  incursions  alone 
and  unguarded  into  the  strongholds  of  Islam.  But,  for 
our  purpose,  it  is  most  needful  here  to  note  that  he  seems 
to  have  been  as  indiff^erent  as  Papias  of  old  to  written 
records.  That  he  had  an  unreasoning  reverence  for  the 
Bible  is  of  course  true  ;  this  was  shown  by  his  use  of 
sortes  evangelic^.  But,  like  the  first  Quakers  and  modern 
revivalists,  he  relied  more  on  the  living  Word  and  the 
actually  present  spirit  of  God.  His  indifference  extended 
even  to  Church  service  books.  "  I  am  your  breviary," 
he  is  said  to  have  retorted  on  a  follower  who  lamented 
the  absence  of  such  aids  to  devotion.  And  at  its  first 
inception  his  order  is  said  to  have  had  no  book  but  the 
cross.  In  fact,  the  Papal  commission  had  made  him,  as 
he  supposed,  a  sort  of  incarnation  of  the  traditions  of  the 
Church  from  the  days  of  St  Peter  to  his  own  time.  It 
was  this  sacred  deposit,  rather  than  any  creed  or  gospel, 
that  he  was  to  guard  against  the  assaults  of  heresy.  And 
with  such  a  form  of  faith  he  may  very  well  have  acquiesced 
in  the  decree  of  the  Council  of  Toulouse. 

We  have  now  reached  a  point  at  which  it  may  be  well 
to  pause  and  note  the  immense  difference  between  the 
relations  of  the  Bible  to  everyday  life  in  the  nineteenth 
century  and  in  the  Middle  Age.  In  both  alike  the  Book 
was  regarded  with  awe  as  a  revelation  of  God's  will. 
But  in  the  nineteenth  century  it  was  the  Book  of  the 
people,  accessible  to  the  humblest,  read  by  the  otherwise 
illiterate,  known  to  every  child,  "  familiar  in  their  mouths 
as  household  words."     In  the  Middle  Ages,  on  the  other 


CHURCH   VIEW   OF   BIBLE   PROHIBITION  77 

hand,  it  was  the  foundation  charter  of  the  Church,  a 
portion,  and  a  portion  only,  of  her  treasured  archives. 
Like  all  documents  of  privilege,  it  was  kept  under  special 
guardianship,  and  only  grudgingly  shown  to  the  few.  To 
the  poor  it  was  inaccessible,  not  only  because  of  their 
ignorance,  but  because  of  its  price.  Instead  of  being 
scattered  broadcast  among  the  illiterate,  it  was  scarcely 
known  even  to  educated  laymen.  And,  indeed,  from  the 
time  when  Hellenistic  Greek  in  the  East,  and  Latin  in 
the  West,  ceased  to  be  the  ordinary  spoken  languages  of 
the  once  Roman  provinces,  there  were  thousands  of 
priests  who  gabbled  the  services  without  understanding 
them,  and  who  were  almost  totally  ignorant  of  the 
Bible. 

Yet  before  we  unreservedly  condemn  the  economy 
with  which  the  Church  treated  the  Bible,  we  ought  to 
give  due  consideration  to  the  corporate  consciousness  of 
the  Church  and  to  the  indisputable  dangers  of  committing 
the  miscellaneous  contents  of  the  sacred  literature  to  un- 
guided  use,  or  perhaps  to  inevitable  misuse  by  an  utterly 
ignorant  populace.  As  to  the  first  point,  it  is  too  often 
forgotten  by  ardent  Protestants  that  the  Catholic  Church 
has  always  accepted,  in  a  more  literal  sense  than  they  do, 
the  concluding  words  of  St  Matthew's  Gospel  :  "  Lo,  I 
am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world." 
To  the  Catholic,  this  does  not  mean  any  vague,  im- 
personal influence,  nor  even  an  emotional  imagination  of 
a  personal  presence,  apart  from  any  corporeal  manifesta- 
tion or  articulate  expression.  It  means,  rather,  that  the 
very  flesh  and  blood,  vivified  by  the  immortal  spirit  of 
Jesus,  are  present  on  the  altar  after  every  due  and  rightful 
consecration  of  the  elements  selected  by  the  Lord  him- 
self for  this  great  purpose.     It  means,   moreover,   that 


78  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

Jesus  communicated  to  his  apostles,  and  they  to  their 
successors,  such  a  measure  of  his  spirit  as  enabled  them 
to  develop  his  doctrine  with  full  authority  from  him. 
The  Western  half  of  the  divided  Church  goes  further  still, 
and  insists  that  a  primacy  with  special  fulness  of  authority 
was  conferred  by  Christ  upon  St  Peter,  which  primacy 
and  authority  have  been  renewed  to  every  successor  of 
the  Prince  of  Apostles  in  the  See  of  Rome.  With  the 
truth  or  the  falsehood  of  such  views  we  have  here  noth- 
ing to  do.  I  only  insist  on  the  fact  that  such  beliefs 
prevailed  in  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages.  And  this 
is  the  corporate  consciousness  which  is  too  often  ignored 
in  Protestant  criticisms  of  the  Catholic  attitude  toward 
the  Bible  in  the  middle  centuries  of  our  era.  Surely, 
if  it  is  Christian  to  regard  the  above  words  from 
St  Matthew  as  fulfilled  by  a  miraculous  book  and  an 
imagined  but  inarticulate  spirit,  the  theory  is  not  less 
Christian,  and  many  think  not  less  rational,  which  sees 
the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  in  a  perpetually  repeated 
physical  miracle,  and  in  an  infallible  Church  or  Pope. 

It  was  with  a  sense  of  this  corporate  consciousness  that 
Bail  of  Abbeville,  in  his  introduction  to  his  Summary  of 
All  Councils^  discussed  the  question  whether  Scripture  or 
the  Church  is  prior,  in  the  sense  of  being  the  more 
original  authority.  "  Taking  the  name  '  Church'  broadly," 
he  says,  "  for  the  congregation  of  the  servants  of  God, 
the   Church   is,   in   true   religion,  the   prior  of   the   two. 

1  Summa  Consiliorujn  (9w;«ww,  published  in  Paris,  1775.  It  is  open 
to  question  whether  "  in  vera  religione  "  was  intended  to  be  taken  with 
"servientium  Deo"  or  with  "prior  est."  It  is  therefore,  perhaps,  best  to 
give  the  ipsissima  verba,  which  run  thus  :  *'  sumpto  latino  Ecclesias  nomine 
pro  congregatione  servientium  Deo  in  vera  religione  prior  est  Ecclesia  ; 
fuit  enim  hoc  ante  scripturam  et  ipsi  Ecclesiae  jamdudum  existenti  data 
est  Scriptura." 


THE   IGNORANT   NEED   GUIDANCE       79 

For  she  existed  before  the  Scripture,  and  the  Scripture 
was  given  to  the  Church  already  in  being."  That  these 
words  expressed  what  we  may  call  the  official  doctrine 
prevalent  during  the  Middle  Ages,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
And  this  being  so,  the  Church,  whose  lay  members  were, 
to  the  extent  of  at  least  eight-tenths,  unable  to  read,  not 
unnaturally  thought  that  her  duty  was  sufficiently  dis- 
charged if  the  treasures  of  Church  consciousness  and 
tradition  were  imparted  to  the  multitude  by  means  of 
public  services  and  private  ministrations. 

In  this  conception  of  her  duty  the  Church  was  con- 
firmed by  a  prevalent  and  not  unnatural  fear  that  the 
Bible  was,  in  some  respects,  a  dangerous  book  for  the 
ignorant  layman.  This  fear  did  not  altogether  lack 
scriptural  support  ;  for  St  Peter  was  believed  to  have 
written,  concerning  his  "  beloved  brother  PauFs  "  epistles, 
that  there  were  in  them  "  some  things  hard  to  be  under- 
stood, which  they  that  are  unlearned  and  unstable  wrest, 
as  they  do  also  the  other  scriptures^  unto  their  own  destruc- 
tion." Such  words  would  undoubtedly  appear  to  suggest 
that  no  Scriptures  whatever  were  quite  safe  for  the  un- 
learned, without  guidance.  Again,  when  the  Ethiopian 
eunuch,  deep  in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  was  asked  by 
the  Evangelist  Philip,  "  Understandest  thou  what  thou 
readest } "  the  obvious  reply  was,  "  How  can  I,  except 
some  man  should  guide  me  ? "  The  Catholic  Church,  then, 
thought  that  no  disparagement  of  the  Bible  was  involved 
in  the  assumption  that  all  laymen  were  in  the  position  of 
this  apparently  illiterate  eunuch,  and  needed  divinely 
appointed  teachers   to  guide   them.      Nor   should   it   be 

^  We  naturally  suppose  Bail  to  have  had  the  New  Testament  in  mind. 
But  his  "  broad  "  definition  of  the  Church  would,  for  him,  no  doubt,  include 
the  Mosaic  congregation  before  the  law  was  written. 


8o  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

forgotten  that  the  centre  of  gravity  of  the  Christian  faith, 
as  held  from  earliest  times  by  Catholic  believers,  is  not  an 
infallible  Book,  but  an  infallible  Church.  True,  the  Book 
is  infallible  from  the  Catholic  point  of  view,  but  it  is 
infallible  only  to  those  who  understand  it  aright ;  and 
the  office  of  the  Church  is  to  secure  that  right  under- 
standing. 

Very  different  is  the  Protestant  point  of  view.  For, 
according  to  this,  the  Bible  is  its  own  best  interpreter  ; 
so  much  so,  that  if  the  Book  be  scattered  broadcast 
among  Andaman  Islanders,  or  Sioux  Indians,  provided 
only  they  are  taught  to  read,  or  someone  reads  it  to  them, 
the  plan  of  salvation  must  shine  out  from  its  pages. 
For  this  view  also  scriptural  support  may  be  found, 
though  perhaps  scarcely  so  clear  as  the  passages  quoted 
on  the  other  side.  Thus,  when  one  of  the  writers  of 
the  Isaiah  literature  speaks  of  a  "  highway,"  a  "  way  of 
holiness,"  and  assures  us  that  the  "  wayfaring  men, 
though  fools,  shall  not  err  therein,"  ^  he  is  supposed  to 
be  referring  to  the  plainness  of  the  way  of  salvation  as 
set  forth  in  the  New  Testament,  whereas  the  true 
meaning  would  appear  to  be  that  the  way  of  Israel's 
return  from  Babylon  will  be  prepared  and  secured  by 
Israel's  God  Jahweh. 

With  more  reason,  when  St  Paul  adapts  to  his  own 
purpose  the  words  of  the  Deuteronomist  concerning  the 
plainness  of  the  Mosaic  law,'^  he  is  supposed  to  be 
insisting  on  the  clearness  of  the  Gospel  to  the  simple 
soul  without  any  aid  from  Rabbi  or  priest.     But  then  it 

^  Isa.  XXXV.  8.  The  translation  is  given  much  otherwise  by  the  learned, 
as,  e.g.^  by  Canon  Cheyne  in  the  Polychrome  Bible  :  "The  unclean  shall 
not  pass  over  it,  and  fools  shall  err  elsewhere." 

2  Rom.  X.  8, 


DANGERS   OF  BIBLE   READING  8i 

is  not  the  written  but  the  oral  Gospel  of  which  he  is 
speaking — "the  word  of  faith  which  we  preach."  Or, 
again,  the  beautiful  pictures  sketched  with  the  consummate 
art  of  simplicity  in  the  Synoptic  narratives,  where  we  see 
the  faces  of  toil-worn  crowds  brightened  by  the  self- 
evident  truths  of  justice  and  love  and  hope,  uttered  by 
the  Galilean  prophet  in  the  searching  tones  of  heartfelt 
sympathy,  are  supposed  to  teach  that  the  weary  and 
heavy-laden  have  no  need  of  any  key  to  God's  revelation, 
save  that  revelation  itself,  whereas  the  only  lesson  taught  is 
that  humanity  at  its  poorest  and  worst  is  still  susceptible  to 
pure  ideals  when  they  are  unfolded  by  love.  From  such  a 
familiar  experience  to  the  incommensurable  conclusion  that 
everything  within  the  covers  of  the  Authorised  Version 
is  good  for  "  human  nature's  daily  food,"  is  surely  an 
audacious  and  irrational  inference.  Yet  it  is  only  by  such 
monstrous  reasoning  that  the  Bible  has  been  justified  as  a 
school-book,  and  that  patriarchal  morality,  traditions  of 
savage  massacres,  the  deed  of  Jael,  the  story  of  Micah  and 
the  Danites,  and  of  "  a  certain  Levite  sojourning  on  the 
side  of  Mount  Ephraim,"  have  been  put  into  the  hands 
of  Christian  children,  as  a  part  of  "  God's  book."  ^ 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  the  attitude  of  the  Church 
toward  the  Bible  was  caused  by  considerations  very 
different  from  these.  No  Protestant  believer  in  verbal 
inspiration  was  ever  more  firmly  convinced  of  the  divine 
dictation  of  every  word  in  Scripture  than  was  the  hier- 
archy of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  the  key  to  the  meaning 
of  the  oracles  was  in  the  possession  of  the  Church.  And 
since  one  mode  of  revelation  was  needed  to  explain  the 
other,  there  was  no  inconsistency  whatever  in  the  ecclesi- 

^  It  is  not  true  to  say  that  no  practical  evils  have  resulted.     Those 
experienced  in  school  management  know  better. 

6 


82  MAN   AND  THE   BIBLE 

astical  objection  to  allow  to  the  laity  the  free  handling  of 
Scripture,  apart  from  the  guidance  of  the  priest.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  can  scarcely  be  denied  that  the  limitations 
imposed  upon  lay  reading  of  the  Bible  were  excessive 
and  unreasonable.  For  the  Council  of  Toulouse,  not 
content  with  a  caution  against  indiscriminate  and  un- 
guided  reading  by  the  "  unlearned  and  unstable,"  injuri- 
ously prohibited  the  possession  by  a  layman  of  any 
portion  whatever  of  the  Bible,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Psalms.  Such  a  policy  may  be  justly  stigmatised  as 
obscurantism.  Nor  is  it  any  sufficient  answer  to  urge 
that  in  those  dark  times  the  Church  alone  maintained 
schools  and  founded  the  universities  of  the  coming  day  ; 
for  all  the  schools  and  all  the  seats  of  higher  learning 
were  treated  solely  as  nurseries  for  the  Church.  And  if 
the  limitations  imposed  upon  teachers  and  scholars  alike 
were  happily  broken  through  by  the  irrepressible  vitality 
of  human  genius,  it  was  only  as  a  stone  fence  is  cleft  by 
the  swelling  roots  of  a  sapling  which  is  soon  brought 
within  bounds  again  by  the  stolid  labourer's  axe.  The 
tragedy  of  Roger  Bacon  is  a  cruel  comment  on  the  claim 
of  the  Church  to  have  made  monasteries  the  seed-plots 
of  science.  I  conclude  then,  that  so  far  as  humanity  at 
large,  in  its  public  actions  was  concerned,  the  Bible, 
apart  from  the  Church,  possessed,  before  the  age  of  print- 
mg,  an  influence  so  indirect  and  so  slight  that  a  superficial 
observer  might  have  regarded  it  as  negligible.  And  yet 
through  secret  channels,  amongst  maligned  and  persecuted 
sects,  its  best  lessons  were  gradually  permeating  the  sub- 
conscious soul  of  the  Western  world,  and  preparing  a  new 
age  which  has  only  now  begun.  With  that  process  we 
shall  be  mainly  concerned  in  the  succeeding  chapters. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    BIBLE    IN    THE    DARKEST    AGE 

In  any  survey  of  the  relations  between  Church  and  Bible 
during  the  first  millennium  of  the  Christian  era,  our 
attention  is  first  arrested  by  the  noble  reign  of  King 
Alfred  in  England  ;  for  among  the  ideals  of  that  royal 
saint  was  that  of  a  people  well  instructed  in  holy  writ. 
Anticipating,  as  far  as  the  limitations  of  his  time  would 
allow,  the  modern  idea  of  making  the  Bible  an  "  English 
classic,"  he  fastened  first  of  all  upon  those  parts  of  the 
sacred  book  most  easily  understood  by  the  many,  and 
most  fitted  to  irradiate  their  squalid  lives  with  finer 
feeling  and  more  spiritual  aims.  Therefore  it  was  that 
he  hastened  to  give  to  the  people  in  their  own  as  yet 
barbarous  speech  the  Psalms  and  the  Gospels.  That  he 
set  at  the  head  of  the  realm's  laws  the  Ten  Command- 
ments in  the  English  of  his  clan,  is  a  record  suggestive 
perhaps  as  much  of  his  limitations  as  of  his  ambitions  ; 
for  it  is  not  told  of  him  that  he  repudiated  graven 
images,  as  the  first  of  those  commandments  required.^ 
And,  in  regard  to  the  Sabbath,  he  followed  the  teaching 

*  This  was  the  Jewish  interpretation  after  the  Mosaic  law  assumed  its 
present  form.  And  to  this  extent  the  Hebrews  may  be  credited  with 
understanding  their  own  language. 

83 


84  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

of  Jesus  rather  than  that  of  Moses  and  the  Jews.  But 
the  "Ten  Words"  had  been  adopted  by  the  Church  as 
a  divine  code,  and  this  was  the  sanction  that  impressed 
him.  Authorities  are  not  unanimous  as  to  the  extent  of 
the  king's  personal  share  in  the  work  of  translation.  But 
this,  though  a  matter  of  sentimental  interest,  is  of  no 
moment  as  an  evidence  of  his  policy.  The  vernacular 
Psalter  had  existed  before  his  day,  but  probably  needed 
adaptation  to  the  development  of  the  people's  speech. 
Bede  had  translated  the  Fourth  Gospel.  But  the 
Northumbrian  dialect  would  scarcely  be  available  for  the 
West  Saxons.  The  version,  however,  of  the  four 
Gospels  achieved  under  Alfred's  direction,  formed  the 
basis  on  which  the  early  English  translation  of  the 
immediately  succeeding  centuries  was  gradually  built  up. 

It  naturally  occurs  to  us  that  this  anxiety  for  popular 
knowledge  of  Scripture  ought  to  have  been  shown  by 
the  Church  rather  than  by  the  State  ;  by  the  Bishops 
rather  than  by  the  King.  But  what  has  been  said  above 
about  the  corporate  consciousness  of  the  Church  as  in 
itself  the  repository  of  divine  revelation  goes  far  to 
explain  the  apparent  anomaly.  At  any  rate  there  is,  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  no  record  of  any  episcopal  or  papal 
objection  to  King  Alfred's  work.  For  such  absence  of 
opposition  a  reason  is  readily  conceived  in  the  general 
orthodoxy  of  England  at  that  time,  and  the  absence  of 
any  apparent  tendency  to  use  the  Bible  as  a  weapon 
against  the  Church.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  absence  of 
any  clerical  protests  suggests  a  happy  contrast  to  the 
attitude  of  the  Council  of  Toulouse  two  centuries  later. 

A  century  and  a  half  before  Alfred  undertook  to  give 
the  Gospels  to  his  people,  the  Venerable  Bede,  in  his 
dying  hours,  had  dictated  the  last  words  of   his  North- 


THE   VENERABLE   BEDE  85 

umbrian  English  translation  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 
Whether  it  was  ever  much  used  we  do  not  know  ;  for 
very  few  indeed  of  his  people  could  read.  But  at  least 
they  could  understand  it  if  read  to  them  ;  and  this  was 
very  likely  often  done  by  kindly  priests,  or  educated 
laymen  who  cared  for  their  servants'  welfare.  Nor  does 
the  possibility  of  such  Gospel-reading  to  the  ilHterate 
seem  at  all  incongruous  with  the  sort  of  Christian  social 
life  suggested  in  the  pathetic  description  given  us  by 
Cuthbert  of  the  Master's  death.  In  reading  it  we  breathe 
a  wholly  different  air  from  that  of  the  acrid  controversies, 
mean  passions,  and  stolid  superstitions  which  envenomed 
the  Council  of  Toulouse.  Besides,  though  King  Alfred 
was  pre-eminent,  he  was  by  no  means  alone  amongst 
early  English  Christians  and  rulers  in  his  desire  to  present 
to  the  people  in  their  mother  tongue  the  best  literature 
of  the  Church  and  the  world.  For  though  Bede,  by 
writing  in  Latin  his  Ecclesiastical  History^  showed  that 
for  this  work  he  expected  only  cultured  readers,  he  took 
care  to  give  the  people  the  Creed  and  the  Lord's  Prayer 
in  their  own  language  ;  and  it  is  said  that  many  illiterate 
priests  were  glad  of  such  renderings,  and  also  of 
"  glosses  "  ^  which  helped  them  to  understand  the  Psalms. 
But  Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History  was  not  allowed  to 
remain  long  in  the  obscurity  of  Latin.  For  King  Alfred, 
either  with  his  own  hand  or  through  his  clerks,  turned 
it  into  the  native  language.  And  though  it  may  be 
doubtful  whether  there  were  at  that  time  many  people 
who  could  read  at  all,  yet  had  not  learned  Latin,  this 
translation,    like    that  of   the    Gospels,    made    the    book 

^  These  were  interlinear  interpretations,  putting  under  each  Latin  word 
its  English  meaning,  without  regard  to  the  difference  of  the  verbal  order 
in  the  two  languages. 


86  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

available  for  such  unlearned  Englishmen  as  could  get  a 
clerk  to  read  to  them. 

Even  before  Bede's  time,  Aldhelm,  Bishop  of  Sher- 
borne, had  turned  the  Psalms  into  the  vernacular.  And 
still  more  important  is  it  to  recall  the  well-known  story 
of  Caedmon,  Bede's  countryman,  who  anticipated  and  far 
surpassed  the  feebler  poet  of  the  Ormulum,  not  only  in 
the  extent  of  his  work,  but  in  the  vigour  and  impressive- 
ness  of  its  form.  For  what  Caedmon  did  was  to  render 
into  ringing  alliterative  metre  and  in  telling  northern 
phrase  the  whole  story  of  God's  dealings  with  man  as 
narrated  by  Hebrew  seers  and  Christian  apostles  or 
evangelists.  And  here  we  find,  I  think,  a  clear  illustra- 
tion of  the  view  taken  above  concerning  the  real  value 
of  early  English  translations  of  the  Bible.  For  though 
they  may  have  found  almost  as  few  readers  as  the  Vulgate 
did,  they  were  understood  by  all  when  read  aloud.  And 
the  whole  circumstances  of  Caedmon's  early  history 
make  it  certain  that  what  he  knew  of  Bible  story  was 
wholly  derived  from  oral  instruction  or  from  listening 
to  the  reading  of  such  English  fragments  as  already 
existed. 

According  to  ancient  English  custom,  Caedmon  the  cow- 
herd sat  with  his  fellow-servants  round  the  lower  end  of 
his  master's  table,  and  when  the  meat  had  gone  round 
and  merriment  began,  the  harp  was  passed  from  hand  to 
hand,  and  even  the  humblest  servant  who  could  sing  was 
applauded  as  an  ornament  of  the  feast.  They  sang  of 
Beowulf  ;  they  sang  of  Conisburgh  and  of  many  a 
bloody  fight.  But  gloomy  Caedmon  sat  in  silence,  and 
seemed  to  freeze  the  flow  of  song  as  it  approached  him. 
For  whether  he  could  sing  or  not,  his  thoughts  were 
wandering  elsewhere  among  the  mysteries  of  the  world's 


C^DMON  87 

beginning,  and  the  brooding  of  the  Divine  Spirit  over 
chaos,  and  the  speaking  of  the  Word  that  said,  "  Be  light, 
and  light  was."  All  this  and  much  more  he  had  heard 
from  priests  and  readers  who,  touched  by  his  eager  interest, 
recited  these  high  themes  in  his  own  rude  speech.  He 
had  thought  of  them  alone  with  his  cattle  in  the  forest ; 
he  had  pondered  over  them  when  watching  at  night  and 
trying  to  trace  the  constellations  of  the  sky.  But  it  was 
neither  suUenness  nor  the  pride  of  an  unsympathetic 
heart  that  kept  him  silent  or  drove  him  away  when  the 
harp  approached.  But  no  chord  sounded  in  his  soul,  and 
he  could  not  sing.  Then  one  night,  repelled  thus  from 
the  board,  he  fell  asleep  amidst  his  cattle  ;  and  in  his 
dreams  the  tiresome  request  pursued  him  :  "  Sing, 
Caedmon,  sing  !  "  But  it  was  not  from  jeering  com- 
panions that  the  request  came  now,  for  a  heavenly  form 
stood  above  him.  And  when  Caedmon  humbly  pleaded 
that  he  knew  neither  how  to  sing  nor  what  to  sing  about, 
the  answer  came,  "  Sing  creation  !  "  Then  the  vision 
faded,  but  words,  he  knew  not  how,  rushed  into  his  mind 
and  ranged  themselves  in  form  and  fitted  themselves  to 
the  rude  music  of  the  time.  When  he  awoke  the  dream 
did  not  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day  ;  for  not 
only  the  heavenly  vision,  but  the  very  words  borne  in 
upon  him  remained  in  his  memory.  And  when  next 
challenged  to  sing,  he  broke  into  a  majestic  cadence  of 
sacred  song  which  not  only  solemnised  his  jesting  com- 
panions, but  became  the  talk  of  the  countryside.  Hilda, 
the  Abbess  of  Whitby,  heard  of  the  wonder  and  had  no 
doubt  that  the  Holy  Spirit  which  breathes  "where  it 
listeth "  had  stirred  the  soul  of  the  devout  herdsman. 
From  that  time  his  poetic  renderings  of  Scripture  narra- 
tives multiplied,  until  at  length  the  common  people  could 


88  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

hear  and  echo  in  their  everyday  speech  the  whole  Bible 
story  of  God's  dealings  with  mankind. 

Considering  all  these  reminiscences  of  earliest  English 
life,  we  may  confidently  say  that  if  what  is  called  "  the 
Reformation  "  took  a  more  native  form  and  a  more  home- 
like tone  in  Britain  than  in  the  countries  of  the  Continent, 
this  was  largely  owing  to  the  intensely  English  character 
of  the  aspirations  which  stirred  Caedmon  and  Bede  and 
Alfred  and  Orm  of  the  Ormulum,  and  Langland  and 
WycliiFe.  But  be  it  remembered  that  during  all  this 
time  the  Bible  itself  was,  to  the  common  people,  a  dim 
and  awful  mystery,  almost  as  much  unknown  to  them  in 
its  real  form  as  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  to  the  Hebrews 
after  it  had  been  once  enshrined  in  the  darkest  recess  of 
the  Temple.  Of  what  was  in  it  they-  were  pardy  told, 
just  as  the  Israelites  were  told  of  the  two  stone  tablets 
and  the  cherubim  over  the  Mercy  seat.  But  whereas  to 
the  nineteenth-century  Englishmen  the  Bible  was  as 
familiar  as  the  compass  to  the  mariner,  the  sacred  volume 
was  to  the  Englishman  of  old,  and  indeed  to  the  vast 
majority  of  Christians,  as  mysterious  and  as  inaccessible  as 
any  miraculous  image  fallen  from  heaven  and  concealed 
under  the  jealous  guardianship  of  priests. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  closely  the  relations 
between  the  Church  and  the  Bible  during  the  times 
immediately  preceding  the  tenth  century.  Indeed,  during 
a  large  part  of  the  earlier  Christian  ages  the  most  interest- 
ing illustrations  of  the  position  held  by  the  Bible  will 
be  more  conveniently  treated  in  the  seventh  chapter, 
dealing  with  the  Bible  and  Religion.  But  the  attitude  of 
the  ecclesiastical  mind  needs  to  be  observed  in  those 
earlier  times  as  well  as  in  the  later  ;  the  story  of  the 
earliest  versions  must  be  recalled  ;  and  more  important 


CHARLEMAGNE  AND  THE  BIBLE        89 

than  all,  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  origins  of 
Scripture  must  be  considered.  But  the  moulding  of 
human  thought  and  feeling,  the  causes  of  "  heresy," 
whether  rightly  or  wrongly  so  called,  and  an  attempt  to 
track  to  its  fountain-head  the  persistent,  though  precarious 
and  often  hidden  stream  of  belief  and  emotion  which, 
during  the  nineteenth  century,  spread  into  a  tide  of 
evangelical   faith,  must  all  be  relegated  to  a  later  page. 

During  the  earlier  Middle  Ages  some  of  the  most 
interesting  illustrations  of  our  subject  are  to  be  found 
in  the  records  of  Charlemagne,  who  dominated  Western 
Europe  during  the  end  of  the  eighth  and  the  beginning 
of  the  ninth  century.^  Such  illustrations,  however,  are 
more  to  the  credit  of  the  State  than  of  the  Church.  It  is 
true,  indeed,  that  the  great  king  was  fortunate  in  the 
selection  of  a  scholarly  Englishman,  Alcuin,  a  priest  of 
York,  as  his  minister  of  education.  And  to  the  latter  the 
Church  was  indebted  for  the  practical  embodiment  of  the 
monarch's  ideas.  But  it  is  not  the  less  certain  that  the 
scheme  for  schools  at  ecclesiastical  centres,  and  the  work 
of  correcting  and  re-editing  the  imperfect  and  corrupt 
manuscripts  of  the  Bible  in  general  use  at  the  time, 
originated  from  Charlemagne  himself. 

Thus,  in  a  circular  letter  to  monasteries  and  chapters, 
some  years  before  his  assumption  of  the  imperial  crown, 
he  wrote  that  he  had  remarked  with  much  regret  the  bad 
grammar,  rude  expressions,  and  uncultured  style  of  the 
communications  received  even  from  Churchmen.  The 
sentiments  expressed  were  good,  but  the  mode  of  ex- 
pression   shocking.       "  In    consequence,"   he    continued, 

^  For  the  following  account  of  Charlemagne  and  the  Bible,  I  have 
compared  Guizot  {Cours  d'Histoire  Moderne)  with  the  Capitularies  in  the 
edition  of  Baluze  ;  Paris,  1677. 


90  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

"  we  have  become  apprehensive  that  as  there  is  so  little 
facility  in  writing,  the  understanding  of  Holy  Scripture 
may  be  much  more  defective  than  it  ought  to  be."  ^  He 
then  exhorts  Churchmen  to  put  themselves  in  a  condition 
"  to  penetrate  easily  and  surely  the  mysteries  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures."  "  Now,  it  is  certain  that,  since  there  are  in 
the  Holy  Scriptures  allegories,  metaphors,  and  the  like, 
that  man  who  has  been  well  instructed  in  letters  will  most 
readily  understand  them  in  their  true  spiritual  sense." 
"  Choose,  then,  for  this  work  men  who  have  the  will  and 
the  capacity  to  learn,  and  also  the  art  of  teaching 
others."  ^ 

Perhaps  as  a  model,  perhaps  as  a  stimulus  to  loyal 
emulation,  a  school  was  established  in  the  Palace  under 
Alcuin  as  principal.  This  institution  anticipated  on  a 
lordly  scale  the  itinerant  schools  of  poor  countries  in  far 
future  times,  for  Charlemagne's  restless  activities  kept 
his  Court  as  well  as  his  armies  continually  on  the  move. 
But  wherever  the  Court  went,  there  went  the  Palace 
school  also.  By  that  term,  however,  is  not  to  be  under- 
stood a  place  or  classes  for  the  instruction  of  children. 
The  monarch's  sons  in  their  teens  were  indeed  privileged 
to  receive  lessons  from  Alcuin,  but  the  greater  number 
of  his  pupils  were  grown  men  and  women,  councillors, 
archbishops,  the  king's  own  sister,  and  the  female  relatives 
of  his  ministers.  Thus  the  character  of  the  Palace 
school  suggests  to  us  that  when  Charlemagne  wrote  as 
quoted  above,  insisting  on  the  appointment  pf  teachers  to 

^  Recorded  in  the  Capitularies^  as  edited  by  Etienne  Baluze  ;  Paris, 
1677,  tome  I,  col.  201. 

2  The  words  are  interesting  as  containing  a  germ  of  the  "higher 
criticism,"  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  they  come  from  a  layman.  Charle- 
magne was  certainly  no  saint ;  but  he  had  a  great  deal  of  common 
sense. 


ROYAL  FORERUNNER  OF  BIBLE  SOCIETY  91 

correct  the  ignorance  of  the  times,  he  was  not  thinking  of 
elementary  education,  nor  yet  of  children's  schools,  though 
these  were  not  neglected,  but  his  immediate  object  was 
to  remedy  the  lamentable  defects  of  education  which  left 
his  clergy  utterly  unfit  to  explain  "  the  mysteries  of  holy 
writ." 

Yet  it  would  be  almost  a  ridiculous  anachronism  to 
impute  to  Charlemagne  the  impossible  dream  of  familiaris- 
ing his  Gallic  and  German  subjects  with  the  letter  of  the 
Bible.  For  only  a  small  minority  of  them  could  read  ; 
and  the  people  of  his  newly  conquered  German  realms 
were  only  converted  by  the  sword,  remaining  absolute 
pagans  in  everything  but  the  name.  Besides,  whenever 
he  mentions  "  Holy  Scriptures,"  he  means  the  Vulgate 
version  ;  and  if  any  forerunners  of  the  Bible  Society  had 
conceived  the  bold  idea  of  giving  the  Scriptures  to  the 
common  people  in  their  mother  tongue,  the  multitude  of 
unripe  dialects,  making  most  of  the  tribes  mutually 
unintelligible,  presented  an  obviously  insurmountable 
obstacle.  True,  the  Gothic  version  of  Ulphilas  had 
existed  for  some  four  hundred  years.  But  it  had  probably 
never  been  available  for  more  than  the  immediate 
congeners  of  the  translator,  and  in  the  days  of  Charle- 
mange  its  language  was  already  almost  obsolete.  When, 
therefore,  we  read  with  sympathy  of  the  desire  of 
Charlemagne  to  make  the  Scriptures  accessible,  we  must 
remember  that,  to  all  but  ecclesiastics  and  a  very  few 
educated  laymen,  the  accessibihty  was  necessarily  indirect 
and  second  hand.  The  clergy  were  to  understand 
the  mysteries  ;  and  from  the  treasure-house  of  the 
Bible  they  were,  as  conscientious  dispensers  of  their 
heavenly  Master's  mercies,  to  bring  forth  things  new 
and   old.      But  the    king  was   most    anxious    that  they 


92  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

should  make  the  pulpit  a  fountain  of  practical  morals 
to  the  people,  and  not  a  place  of  vantage  for  the  dis- 
play of  clerical  learning.  He  therefore  insisted  that 
all  sermons  should  be  such  as  the  common  people  could 
understand. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  age  of  Charlemagne  was 
characterised  by  a  premature  and  limited  revival  of  letters, 
and  that  the  chief  motive  of  this  revival  was  the  desire  of 
the  king  that  the  pastors  of  his  people  should  have  an 
efficient  knowledge  of  the  Bible.  But  this  partial  reform 
was  promoted  by  the  secular  power,  which  made  a  great 
Churchman  its  instrument.  It  is  this  Churchman  whose 
letters  bear  testimony  to  the  earnestness  of  the  king's 
resolve.  And  one  of  Alcuin's  letters  to  his  master  has, 
from  this  point  of  view,  a  touch  of  pathetic  interest.  It 
was  written  not  long  after  the  imperial  coronation  at 
Rome  in  a.d.  800,  from  which  gorgeous  ceremonial  the 
wearied  minister  and  student  with  difficulty  obtained 
permission  to  absent  himself.  He  was  in  his  Abbey  of 
St  Martin  at  Tours,  whither  he  had  been  allowed  to 
retire  for  the  short  remainder  of  his  days  ;  and  in  that 
retirement  he  had  completed  his  long  labours  on  the 
revision  of  the  imperfect  manuscripts  of  the  Bible  in 
ordinary  use.  Charlemagne  was  now  at  the  summit  of 
all  human  dignity.  He  was  a  far  greater  man  than  the 
Emperor  of  the  East.  The  Pope  was  practically  his 
subject,  and  he  could  smile  at  the  ecclesiastical  pretence 
that  the  Pontiff  had  conferred  upon  him  his  crown.  It 
was  to  the  man  who  ruled  almost  all  lands  between  the 
Northern  seas  and  the  Mediterranean,  who  had  come  in 
pomp  from  Rome,  acclaimed  and  almost  adored  as  the 
monarch  of  half  the  world,  that  Alcuin  wished  to  make 
some  gift  worthy  of  his  acceptance. 


ALCUIN^S   GIFT  TO   CHARLEMAGNE     93 

"  I  have  long  considered,"  thus  he  wrote,  "  what  gift  I 
could  offer  to  you  which  might  not  be  unworthy  of  the 
splendour  of  your  imperial  power,  and  which  might  add 
something  to  your  wealth,  redundant  though  that  is. 
While  others  were  bringing  you  all  kinds  of  precious  gifts, 
I  was  not  content  that  my  small  talent  should  lie  torpid  in 
shameful  sloth,  nor  that  the  bearer  of  my  homage  should 
appear  with  empty  hands  before  the  face  of  your  majesty. 
At  last  I  have  found,  with  the  assistance  of  the  Holy  Spirit's 
inspiration,  something  fitting  for  one  in  my  position  to  offer 
you,  and  which  might  be  agreeable  to  your  wisdom. 
Certainly,!  in  the  eagerness  of  your  most  sacred  piety,  one 
may  clearly  see  what  the  Holy  Spirit  is  effecting  for  the 
welfare  of  the  whole  Church,  and  why  the  extension  of 
your  empire  to  its  utmost  limits  of  glory  is  desired  by  so 
many  prayers  of  the  faithful  throughout  the  world,  and  also 
that  at  home  it  may  be  congenial  to  all  the  faithful,  and 
terrible  abroad  to  all  adversaries  of  the  Lord. 

"  But  while  I  was  thus  searching  and  pondering,  it  seemed 
to  me  that  nothing  could  be  found  more  worthy  of  your 
serene  majesty  than  gifts  of  the  divine  books  which  by  the 
dictation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  the  ministration  of  Christ 
the  Lord  were  written  with  the  pen  of  heavenly  grace  for 
the  salvation  of  all  mankind.  These  books,  brought 
together  into  the  unity  of  one  clear  shining^  {clarissimi) 
body  and  laboriously  freed  from  clerical  error,  I  have 
addressed  to  your  illustrious  majesty  by  a  distinguished 
son  of  yours  and  a  faithful  servant  to  you,  so  that  with  full 


1  "  Ergo"  {sic).  But  the  word,  if  genuine,  introduces  no  inference,  and 
seems  merely  to  emphasise  the  following  words. 

2  As  words  with  the  same,  or  a  closely  similar  primary  significance  in 
different  languages,  may,  at  the  same  time,  have  dissimilar  connotations, 
it  is  impossible  always  to  use  the  same  English  word  to  express  the 
same  foreign  word.  Here,  e.g.,  "  clarissimus "  applied  to  a  holy  volume, 
to  a  ruling  sovereign,  and  to  an  officer  or  son  of  Charlemagne,  had,  in  the 
mind  of  the  writer,  different  connotations,  which  require  a  change  in  the 
English  word. 


94  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

hands  he  may  present  himself  in  the  delightful  service  of 
your  majesty.  ...  If  my  loyalty  had  been  able  to  discover 
anything  better,  I  should  eagerly  ofFeri  it  for  the  increase  of 
your  honour.'* 

The  familiar  phrase  "  divine  books "  might  seem  to 
justify  the  evangelical  tradition  of  the  Bible  as  a 
continuous  shechinah  undimmed  in  the  darkest  ages  of 
the  Church,  though  at  such  times  accessible  only  to  a 
fev7.  But  it  can  do  no  service  to  real  religion  to  forget 
that  other  books  have  been  so  called  with  equal  fervour. 
And  it  would  show  a  total  misapprehension  of  the 
relations  of  the  Bible  and  the  Church  in  those  times  to 
regard  the  Book  as  other  than  the  reputed  title-deeds 
of  the  Church  to  the  theocratic  power  which  she  claimed 
over  the  souls  of  men.  In  one  respect,  indeed,  it  may 
be  held  that  the  imperious  Charlemagne  at  least  supposed 
himself  to  be  guided  by  the  voice  of  Scripture  rather 
than  by  the  mock  thunders  of  the  Vatican.  For  he  was 
certainly  inclined  to  sympathise  with  the  iconoclasts  in 
their  protest  against  the  worship  of  images.  This  is 
shown  by  a  decree  of  the  so-called  Council  of  Frankfort, 
which  was  much  more  a  Diet  of  the  Empire  than  a 
spiritual  assembly.  That  assembly  condemned  the  worship 
of  images  without,  however,  prohibiting  their  use  as 
ornaments  or  even  aids  to  devotion. 

But  all  we  need  note  here  is  the  reference  to  the 
Bible  in  what  we  may  take  to  be  the  king's  own  explana- 
tion of  the  meaning  of  the  decree.  For  he  classes  the 
Bible  with  the  Cross  and  the  Holy  Sacraments  and  the 
communion  vessels  and  the  church  building  itself  as 
entitled  to  more  reverence  than  ought  to  be  shown  to 
any  image.  But  surely  this  classification  betrays  relics 
of  fetishism.     For  whether  it  be  the  Cross,  or  the  con- 


RELICS   OF   FETISHISM  95 

secrated  elements,  or  the  vessels  holding  them  that  are 
classed  with  the  Bible,  it  is  the  thing  that  is  venerated. 
And  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  the  inference  that  the  Bible 
was  treated  in  like  manner.  This  tendency  to  fetishism 
constituted  the  essential  evil  in  the  use  of  holy  images 
when  such  use  exceeded  the  limit  of  aids  to  aspiration. 
And  that  use  may  be  as  easily  exceeded  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  a  book  as  in  reverence  to  a  symbolic  wafer  or  a 
consecrated  cup.  Image-worship  was  by  no  means  the 
worst  feature  of  Church  corruption  in  that  age.  But 
Charlemagne  was  never  sufficiently  imbued  with  the 
moral  and  social  spirit  of  the  New  Testament  to  anticipate 
in  any  degree  the  spiritual  and  rational  religion  which 
still  remains  one  of  "  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come." 

The  iconoclastic  controversy  which,  during  the  eighth 
century,  so  much  excited  the  Eastern  Church,  is  of  little 
use  for  our  purpose.  For  though  it  might  be  supposed 
to  illustrate  bondage  to  the  letter  of  the  Mosaic  law,  it 
seems  much  more  likely  that  the  movement  was 
occasioned  by  the  alarming  progress  of  Islam.  For  the 
Unitarians,  as  the  Mahommedans  have  been  sometimes 
called,  taunted  the  Trinitarian  Christians  with  their 
polytheism,  as  evidenced,  not  only  by  dogma,  but  by 
ritual  ;  since  all  the  churches  were  full  of  images, 
reverenced  by  kneeling  or  prostrate  worshippers.  Indeed, 
Gibbon  is  almost  certainly  right  in  tracing  the  iconoclastic 
zeal  of  Leo  the  I  saurian  to  that  rude  soldier's  early 
experience  of  Mahommedan  valour,  and,  perhaps,  his 
association  of  the  success  of  their  arms  with  their  fanatic 
zeal  against  idols. 

The  Scriptures,  then,  had  very  little  to  do  with  the  con- 
troversy ;  and  as  to  the  relations  of  the  Church  to  the 
Bible  in  that  age,  I  shall  content  myself  with  quoting  Dean 


96  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

Milman's  criticism  of  the  epistolary  denunciations  ad- 
dressed by  Pope  Gregory  II.  in  the  earlier  part  of  the 
eighth  century  to  the  Emperor  Leo  : — "  The  strange  mis- 
takes in  the  history  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  still 
stranger  interpretations  of  the  New,  the  loose  legends 
which  are  advanced  as  history,  give  a  very  low  opinion 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  times.  As  a  great  public  docu- 
ment addressed  to  the  whole  Christian  world  by  him  who 
aspired  to  be  the  first  ecclesiastic,  we  might  be  disposed  to 
question  its  authenticity,  if  it  were  not  avouched  by  the 
full  evidence  in  its  favour,  and  its  agreement  with  all  the 
events  of  the  period."  The  ecclesiastical  historian  then 
goes  on  to  quote  from  the  Pope's  epistle  : — "  Where  the 
body  is,  says  our  Lord,  there  will  the  eagles  be  gathered 
together.  The  body  is  Christ  ;  the  eagles  the  religious 
men  who  flew  from  all  quarters  to  behold  him.  When 
they  beheld  him,  they  made  a  picture  of  him.  Not  of 
him  alone.  They  made  pictures  of  James,  the  brother  of 
the  Lord,  of  Stephen,  and  of  all  the  martyrs  ;  and  so 
having  done  they  disseminated  them  throughout  the  world 
to  receive,  not  worship,  but  reverence."  ^  "  You  boast 
that  as  Uzziah  (Hezekiah)  after  800  years  cast  out 
the  brazen  serpent  from  the  Temple,  so  after  800  years 
you  have  cast  out  the  idols  from  the  churches. 
Uzziah  (Hezekiah)  truly  was  your  brother,  as  self-willed 
and  like  thee  daring  to  offer  violence  to  the  priests 
of  God."  The  angry  and  ignorant  Pope  declared  that 
if  the  Emperor  should  enter  a  children's  school  and 
declare  himself  a  destroyer  of  images,  the  pupils  would 

^  Reading  such  passages,  Protestants  may  well  ask,  what  is  the  worth 
of  ecclesiastical  tradition  ?  But  the  same  Protestants,  when  dealing  with 
the  supposed  links  of  Irenaeus  — Polycarp — John,  the  son  of  Zebedee,  are 
possibly  moved  by  another  bias  to  exaggerate  possibilities  and  minimise 
improbabilities  in  quite  a  different  mood. 


THE   PAULICIANS  97 

all  throw  their  tablets  at  his  head,  and  he  "  would  thus  be 
taught  by  these  foolish  ones  what  he  refuses  to  learn  from 
the  wise."  On  which  Dean  Milman  pertinently  asks  : 
"  What  would  well-instructed  children  now  say  to  a  Pope 
who  mistook  Hezekiah  (called  Uzziah)  for  a  wicked 
king,  his  destroying  the  brazen  serpent  for  an  act  of  im- 
piety, and  asserted  that  David  placed  the  brazen  serpent 
in  the  Temple  ? "  ^  When  such  ignorance  was  shown  by 
one  claiming  to  be  Christ's  earthly  vicar,  I  may  leave  it  to 
the  reader  to  imagine  what  was  the  popular  knowledge  of 
the  Bible  in  the  age  when  this  chief  Pastor  reigned. 

Much  more  profitable  will  it  be  for  us  now  to  change 
our  field  of  observation  and  to  concentrate  our  attention 
for  a  while  on  the  Paulicians,  mentioned  above  as  the 
probable  spiritual  progenitors  of  the  Albigenses,  and  of  the 
still  more  modern  evangelical  school  of  religion,  who 
insist  that  in  questions  concerning  the  revelation  of  God 
to  man,  the  Bible  and  not  the  Church  is  the  only  arbiter. 
The  story  of  this  sect,  if  such  it  can  be  called,  commences 
in  the  latter  half  of  the  seventh  century.  But  it  is  most 
convenient  for  our  review  to  take  our  stand  in  the  ninth 
century,  when,  after  being  driven  by  persecution  to  take 
up  carnal  weapons,  they  had,  under  a  vigorous  leader, 
Carbeas,  fortified  a  stronghold  called  Tephrice  on  the 
mountainous  borders  of  Armenia.  Here  partly  the 
strength  of  the  position,  and  partly  the  political  circum- 
stances of  the  time,  gave  them  a  precarious  security  for 
many  years.  Whatever  their  spiritual  aspirations  had 
originally  been,  they  had  now  succumbed  to  a  cruel  fate, 
and,  like  David  and  his  men  in  the  cave  of  Adullam,  had 
become  a  mere  horde  of  bandits.  In  their  excursions 
they  often  captured  Catholics,  called  by  them  "  Romans," 

^  Milman's  Latin  Christianity^  ed.  1854,  Book  iv.,  chap.  vii.  p.  160. 

7 


98  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

in  curious  anticipation  of  modern  Protestant  phraseology, 
and  these  captives,  when  not  killed  in  fight,  were  held  to 
ransom. 

Now  in  870  there  was  resident  at  Constantinople  in 
the  Emperor's  service  a  shrewd  and  most  worldly  wise 
Catholic  priest,  Peter  of  Sicily.  His  worldly  wisdom  had 
been  shown  in  quitting  the  island  of  his  birth  at  the  first 
sign  of  danger  there  from  Mahommedan  incursions  ;  and 
his  shrewdness  speedily  won  for  him  employment  and 
promotion  at  the  Imperial  Court.  He  was  specially 
favoured  by  Basil  I.  When,  therefore,  in  the  year  870, 
the  Emperor  felt  specially  anxious  to  obtain  the  release  of 
certain  captives  held  at  Tephrice,  he  selected  Peter  as  the 
best  man  for  the  mission,  investing  him,  of  course,  with 
the  immunity  of  an  envoy.  Thus  he  came  into  personal 
intercourse  with  Carbeas  and  the  leaders  of  the  sect.  And 
as  his  business  could  not  be  discharged  at  once,  he  spent 
nine  months  in  the  heretical  stronghold.  Then  on  his 
return  home  he  composed  a  History  of  the  Manichceans^ 
and  several  discourses  against  them.  But  Photius,  who 
from  a  private  soldier  rose  to  be  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople, also  wrote,  during  the  same  period,  a  much  larger 
work  on  the  same  subject.  Now  the  story  of  the  rise  and 
progress  of  the  Paulicians  is  in  both  these  works  so 
entirely  similar,  that  learned  editors  have  differed  much  on 
the  question  of  priority.  The  circumstances  of  the  case, 
however,  and  certain  slight  differences  in  the  mode  of 
telling  the  tale,  point  to  Peter  as  the  original  narrator, 
who  was  honoured  by  the  holy  Patriarch's  adoption  of 
his  report.^ 

^  To  a  certain  extent  the  two  histories  seem  related  to  each  other,  as 
are  two  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  say,  Matthew  and  Mark.  The  facts 
alleged  are  in  general  identical,  and  considerable  passages  coincide  even 
verbally.     There  are,  however,  differences.     For  example,  the  story  of  the 


THE   FIRST   PAULICIAN  99 

What  they  both  tell  us,  then,  is  as  follows  : — In  the 
reign  of  Constantine  Pogonatus,  about  the  year  668,  at 
Mananalis,  a  village  of  Samosata  in  Armenia,  and  a 
notorious  centre  of  Manichaeism,  there  was  living  a 
certain  Constantine,  belonging  to  the  sect.  At  his  door 
there  appeared  a  way-worn  traveller,  a  Catholic  deacon 
returning  homewards  from  captivity  in  Syria.  The 
Manichaean  was  not  inhospitable,  and  entertained  the 
stranger  until  he  was  fit  to  resume  his  journey.  At 
parting,  the  grateful  guest  presented  his  host  with  two 
books,  one  of  which  was  a  volume  of  the  "  holy  Gospel, 
and  the  other  of  the  Apostle."^  To  modern  ears  the 
description  sounds  vague.  But  to  Peter's  first  readers  it 
meant  one  or  more  of  the  four  Gospels  and  the  Epistles,  or 
part  of  the  Epistles  of  St  Paul.  The  second  book  probably 
included  the  Acts  ;  for  Constantine  showed  afterwards 
more  knowledge  of  St  Paul's  work  and  companions  than 
the  Epistles  alone  could  give  him.  To  the  Manichaean 
these  books  came  as  a  revelation.  Whether  his  mind  had 
been  at  all  prepared  by  religious  conversations  with  his 
guest,  we  are  not  told  ;  and  the  effect  of  the  books  upon 
him  we  have  to  infer  as  well  as  we  can  for  ourselves  from 
the  bigoted,  bitter,  and  obviously  distorted  narratives  of 
Peter  and  Photius.     At  any  rate  it  is  acknowledged  that 

conversion  of  Sergius  is  given  more  vividly  by  Peter,  and  the  conversation 
is  in  the  first  person,  whereas  Photius  adopts  sometimes  the  third  person. 
For  myself,  while  not  presuming  to  dispute  with  more  learned  critics,  I 
think  that  a  man  who  had  spent  nine  months  in  Tephrice,  was  more 
likely  to  furnish  material  to  a  man  who  had  never  been  there  at  all,  than 
to  borrow  a  second-hand  narrative  from  another  who,  so  far  as  this  part 
of  the  polemic  is  concerned,  must  have  known  less  than  himself.  Thus 
Gibbon  did  not  lose  much  by  his  inability  to  consult  Photius  {Decline  a7id 
Fall^  vol.  vii.  p.  47,  n.^  Dr  Wm.  Smith's  ed.). 

^   ^^  fiiav    ()8t/3A.oj/)    Tov    oiyiov    'EvayyeXiov    Koi     erepTjv    tV    tow    dTTocTJAov," 

Petrus,  Sic.  Hist.  Man.  K.^  in  Migne's  Patrologia. 


loo  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

he  "  threw  away  "  his  Manichaean  library  and  concentrated 
his  whole  attention  on  the  words  of  Jesus  and  the  work  and 
writings  of  St  Paul.  Not  only  so,  but,  according  to  Peter's 
own  acknowledgment,  the  convert  openly  renounced 
and  denounced  the  "  absurdities  and  blasphemies  "  of  the 
Gnostics  whom  he  had  followed.  And,  so  far  as  we  can 
gather,  his  remaining  unpardonable  crime  was  his  too 
exclusive  attention  to  the  parts  of  the  New  Testament  in 
his  possession,  and  his  adhesion  to  a  simpler  form  of 
Christianity  than  that  taught  by  the  Church. 

What  that  simpler  religion  was,  may  fairly  be  inferred 
from  the  examination  of  one  of  Constantine's  successors 
before  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  in  the  reign  of  Leo 
the  Isaurian  (716-741).  No  doubt  there  had  been  in 
the  meantime  some  development  of  doctrine,  as  there 
always  is  in  the  youth  of  every  vigorous  religion  ;  but 
the  main  lines  of  their  teaching  had  certainly  not  been 
changed.  From  that  examination,  then,  we  gather  that 
the  Paulicians  did  not  venerate  the  material  Cross  ; 
neither  did  they  worship  the  Virgin  Mary,  or  regard  her 
as  "  the  Mother  of  God."  They  did  not  believe  in 
transubstantiation,  nor  did  they  even  recognise  the  duty 
of  communion  in  bread  and  wine.  They  did  not  practise 
water  baptism,  and,  according  to  Peter,  they  defended 
themselves  on  this  point  by  saying,  "  It  is  written,  '  I  am 
the  living  water,'  "  ^  words  which  do  not  occur  in  the  New 
Testament.  Still  further,  they  regarded  their  conventicles 
as  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  and  considered  the  "  Roman  " 
Church  to  be  utterly  corrupt.  Other  peculiarities  not 
mentioned  in  this  examination  are  given  on  the  authority 

1  "  Ai6ti  ycypaiTTai  '£7^1  dfii  rh  vSup  rh  (wv."  Jesus  speaks  much  of  "  living 
water"  as  his  gift,  but  never  uses  exactly  the  alleged  phrase.  It  is  curious 
that  Peter  does  not  notice  this. 


PAULICIAN   DOCTRINES  loi 

of  Peter.  Thus  they  are  said  to  have  disowned  entirely 
the  Old  Testament.  But,  as  this  was  a  tenet  of  the 
Manichaeism  which,  according  to  Peter  himself,  the  first 
Paulician  renounced  and  anathematised,  this  is  very 
probably  untrue  ;  or  only  true  in  the  sense  that  they 
depreciated  the  Old  Testament  in  comparison  with  the 
New,  as  indeed  did  St  Paul.  In  the  New  Testament 
they  are  said  to  have  accepted  the  Gospels  and  the  four- 
teen Epistles  of  St  Paul.  It  is,  however,  uncertain 
whether  they  had  the  four  Gospels  at  first.  And  though 
we  are  told  that  they  received  nearly  all  the  rest  of  the 
New  Testament  except  the  epistles  now  attributed  to 
St  Peter,  we  may  very  well  doubt  whether  this  was  true 
of  the  earliest  generation  of  the  sect.^  Further,  according 
to  our  authorities,  whom  there  is  here  no  reason  for 
doubting,  the  Paulicians  did  not  use  the  name  "presbyter" 
for  their  clergy,  if  indeed  they  had  any  "  clergy."  At  any 
rate,  they  made  no  outward  distinction  between  the 
ministering  brethren  and  others. 

The  negations  here  mentioned  are  not  directly  declared 
in  the  examination  above  mentioned  ;  for  the  new  sect 
had  anticipated  by  more  than  a  thousand  years  the 
disingenuous  habit  of  evading  detection  in  heresy  by 
saying  one  thing  and  meaning  another.  Thus,  when  asked 
by  the  Patriarch,  "Why  dost  thou  not  believe  in  and 
worship  the  precious  Cross  ? "  the  accused  replied, 
"  Anathema  be  the  man  who  does  not  worship  and  adore 
the  precious  and  life-giving  Cross."  But  what  he  meant 
by  the  Cross  was  the  dying  Jesus  extended  in  that  form. 

^  The  editor  of  Migne's  issue  here  quotes  a  marginal  note  by  an  ancient 
hand,  antiqiia  manu,  to  the  effect  that  it  was  doubtful  whether  they 
originally  used  these  books,  or  even  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  It  is  added 
that  in  the  time  of  the  writer  of  the  note  they  only  used  two  gospels,  and 
preferred  St  Luke's.     They  had  also  the  Epistle  to  the  Laodiceans. 


I02  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

In  like  manner,  by  "  the  Mother  of  God "  the  heretic 
meant  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  "the  mother  of  us  all." 
By  the  body  and  blood  of  Jesus  in  the  communion  he 
understood  the  words  of  the  Lord.  Finally,  his  ideas  of 
baptism  and  of  the  Church  enabled  him  fervently  to  curse 
those  who  depreciated  either.  But  he  meant  one  thing, 
and  his  judges  another.  Let  us  hope  that  his  escape  from 
condemnation  is  a  proof  of  the  comparative  leniency  of 
the  Patriarch.  On  the  other  hand,  this  facile  ingenuity 
in  prevarication  suggests  a  very  profound  difference 
between  such  wily  arts  and  Luther's  dogged  defiance  of 
Pope  and  Devil.  Such  considerations,  however,  cannot 
cancel  the  obvious  indications  given  above  of  certain 
anticipations  of  the  Protestant  Reformation.  It  must  be 
added  that  many  of  the  sect  gave  proof  of  a  much  sterner 
courage,  and  rivalled  in  their  endurance  the  early  martyrs 
of  the  Christian  faith. 

Why  were  these  reformers  called  Paulicians  .''  Their 
orthodox  historians  and  persecutors  maintained  that  they 
took  the  name  from  a  certain  obscure  Paul,  who  belonged 
to  a  third  generation  of  the  school.  But  Gibbon  believed 
that  they  owed  it  to  their  unbounded  devotion  to  the 
doctrines  and  tradition  of  the  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles. 
And  the  critical  discernment  of  the  historian  is  amply 
confirmed  by  such  unwilling  witnesses  as  the  Sicilian 
Peter  and  the  Patriarch  Photius.  For  they  tell  us,  for 
instance,  that  Constantine  the  founder,  after  his  conver- 
sion, chose  to  be  called  Silvanus.  And  his  successors 
during  the  two  centuries  following  always  adopted  on 
their  accession  the  name  of  some  companion  of  St  Paul's 
travels,  such  as  Titus,  Timothy,  Tychicus,  and  others. 
In  their  missionary  journeys,  also,  they  followed  mainly 
the  footsteps  of  St  Paul,  and  are  even  accused   by  their 


MEANING   OF   THE   NAME   PAULICIAN  103 

enraged  foes  of    professing    to  be  the  very  men  whose 
names  they  took. 

These  facts  seem  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt  that  as 
the  disciples  at  Antioch  were  called  Christians,  because  of 
their  devotion  to  the  name  of  Christ,^  so  the  name 
"  Paulicians,"  whether  assumed  by  themselves  or  con- 
ferred by  others,  was  borne  by  these  people  because  of 
their  almost  exclusive  insistence  on  the  Gospel  as  ex- 
pounded by  St  Paul.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be 
acknowledged  that  much  of  their  practice  and  teaching 
appear  inconsistent  with  true  Paulinism,  the  obvious 
answer  is  that  such  practices  and  teaching  are  known  to 
us  through  the  passionately  prejudiced  writings  of  their 
persecutors.  And  how  violent,  how  savage,  how  utterly 
outrageous  the  rancour  of  these  opponents  was  can 
scarcely  be  conceived  by  those  whose  experience  of  theo- 
logical bitterness  is  confined  to  the  religious  controversies 
of  modern  times.^  In  dealing  with  such  witnesses  we 
are  justified  in  suspecting  misrepresentation  wherever  it 
might  serve  the  cause  they  are  pleading,  and  this  may  go 
far  to  explain  away  some  of  their  most  plausible  allega- 
tions against  these  devotees  of  St  Paul.  Observing  this 
caution,  we  may  well  refuse  to  believe  that  their  leaders 
tried  to  impose  themselves  upon  the  men  of  Macedon  or 
on  the  Pauline  churches  as  the  very  Titus  or  Timothy 
or  Tychicus  who  had  been  inspired  by  the  apostle.  We 
may  suspect    that    the    alleged  relics  of    Manichaeism  in 

1  Whether  there  was  a  pun  on  xPV'^'rhs  suggesting  a  taunt  of  "goodi- 
ness"  or  not,  is  of  no  consequence.     It  was  "  xp'o"rbs  "  that  gave  the  name. 

2  The  authors  whom  I  am  following  can  scarcely  mention  a  Paulician 
name  without  attaching  to  it  some  thundering  epithet  of  reproach.  And 
in  mockery  of  the  sentiment  which  led  to  the  adoption  of  the  names  of 
St  Paul's  companions,  they  often  substitute  punning  distortions  ;  e.^:  for 
Timothy  {Tifi6eeos\  Thymothy  (evfidOeos),  i.e.  "wrath  of  God"  instead  of 
"  honour  of  God." 


I04  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

their  doctrine  were  simply  some  exaggeration  of  St  Paul's 
doctrine  concerning  the  opposition  of  the  natural  and  the 
spiritual,  some  fondness  for  contrasting  the  splendours  of 
the  new  covenant  with  the  darkness  of  the  old,  some 
excessive  scruple  about  material  symbols,^  and  some 
extreme  interpretations  or  misinterpretations  of  the 
apostle's  preference  for  the  celibate  life.  As  to  their 
morals,  at  least  down  to  the  period  of  their  desperate 
uprising  against  pitiless  persecution,  the  reiterated  sneers 
of  their  critics  at  their  attempt  to  make  virtue  an  excuse 
or  a  cloak  for  heresy  is  sufficiently  suggestive. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  converted  Manichaean,  Con- 
stantine  of  Mananalis,  who  in  his  enthusiasm  for  St  Paul 
took  the  name  of  Silvanus,  or  Silas.  Fired  with  the 
example  he  had  set  before  himself,  he  devoted  the  whole 
remainder  of  his  life  to  an  itinerant  ministry  of  the 
Gospel  as  he  understood  it.  Macedonia,  where  the  first 
European  church  had  been  gathered  at  Philippi,  had  a 
special  charm  for  him.  Taking  with  him  the  Epistles, 
he  said  to  the  people  :  "  You  are  the  Macedonians  here 
mentioned,  and  I  am  the  Silvanus  sent  to  you  by  the 
apostle."  If  these  words  are  correctly  reported,  what  he 
meant  was  :  "  I  am  as  much  devoted  to  your  apostle  as 
was  Silas  ;  receive  me  as  coming  in  his  spirit."  ^  That 
his  appeal  was  made  on  some  such  reasonable  grounds,  and 
not  on  the  ridiculous  pretence  that  he  was  the  identical 
Silas  come  back  in  the  flesh,  may  fairly  be  inferred  from 
a  successful  ministry  of  twenty-seven  years.  He  then 
became  the  first  martyr  of  his  sect.      For  much  complaint 

^  To  such  men  St  Paul's  deprecatory  language  about  water  baptism 
(i  Cor.  i,  14,  17)  might  seem  to  mean  more  than  it  does  to  us. 

2  Cj.  Luke  i.  17  concerning  John  the  Baptist,  "and  he  shall  go  before 
him  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elias  "  ;  and  the  words  of  Jesus  (Matt.  xvii. 
12),  "  I  say  unto  you  that  Elias  is  come  already." 


MARTYRDOM    OF   THE   FOUNDER     105 

was  made  at  the  Imperial  Court  of  the  spread  of  the 
heresy,  and  accordingly  a  royal  commissioner  named 
Symeon  was  sent  to  make  inquiry.  The  local  governor, 
Trypho,  was  summoned  to  attend  the  commissioner,  and 
together,  at  the  head  of  a  strong  body  of  troops,  they 
surrounded  and  captured  the  whole  congregation  of 
Paulicians  in  Cibossa,  the  headquarters  of  the  sect. 

Accounts  somewhat  differ  as  to  what  followed.  For, 
according  to  Photius,  every  effort  was  made  to  induce 
the  followers  of  Silvanus  to  recant  and  to  return  as 
penitents  to  the  Church.  Peter,  who  had  better  oppor- 
tunities of  ascertaining  the  facts,  says  nothing  of  this. 
Both,  however,  agree  that  the  heresiarch,  apparently  by 
order  of  Symeon,  was  made  to  stand  as  a  target  before 
his  followers  and  they  were  commanded  to  stone  him  to 
death.  Both  also  happily  agree  that  the  unnerved 
disciples  would  not  or  could  not  obey.  The  stones 
dropped  from  the  paralysed  hands  of  all  but  one — 
Justus  —  a  Pauline  name  —  alleged  to  have  been  the 
adopted  son  of  the  martyr.  This  Justus,  seizing  a 
massive  stone,  hurled  it  with  such  vigour  as  to  kill  his 
spiritual  father,  and  by  his  encomiasts  is  celebrated  as  a 
second  David,  slaying  a  more  dangerous  Goliath.  If  we 
may  believe  Photius,  the  rest  of  the  Paulicians,  seeing 
their  teacher  now  dead,  did  not  hesitate  to  bury  his 
corpse  beneath  the  stones  they  now  cast  on  it.  "And 
so,"  say  our  authorities,  with  a  reminiscence  of  scriptural 
language,  "  the  place  is  called  Sorus — the  cairn — to  this 
day." 

But  now  followed  a  most  startling  analogy  to  the  new 
birth  of  St  Paul  himself.  For  as  Saul  of  Tarsus  is  not 
unreasonably  supposed  by  many  commentators  on  his 
story  to  have  been   affected    more    than  he  was  himself 


io6  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

aware  by  the  serene  heroism  of  Stephen,  so  it  would 
appear  that  Symeon  was  never  the  same  man  after  witness- 
ing that  scene  at  Cibossa.  Perhaps  the  impression  was 
deepened  by  the  unaccountable  persistence  of  the  sup- 
posed penitents  in  maintaining  their  convictions.  For, 
with  amazement,  Peter  tells  us  that  though  offered 
instruction  and  restoration  by  the  ministers  of  the  Church, 
they  "  actually  chose  rather  to  perish  in  their  wickedness 
than  through  repentance  to  propitiate  their  God  and  to 
obtain  everlasting  salvation."  Even  we,  at  the  end  of 
more  than  a  thousand  years  after  the  event,  are  convinced 
by  the  evidence  of  their  most  deadly  foes,  that  in  some 
way  these  people  must  have  caught  a  spark  of  the  holy 
fire  that  baptized  the  first  Christians.  To  us,  therefore, 
it  should  not  be  inexplicable  that  Symeon,  who,  beneath 
his  official  dress  kept  something  of  a  human  heart,  began 
to  feel  relentings  and  dread.  He  returned  to  Con- 
stantinople and  made  his  report.  He  continued  still 
three  years  in  the  Imperial  employ ;  but  could  not 
silence  a  troubled  conscience.  We  might  suspect  here 
an  intentional  adaptation  of  the  story  of  St  Paul's  brief 
autobiography  {cf.  Gal.  i.  i8).  But  certainly  our 
authorities  would  not  have  lent  themselves  to  such  a 
design  ;  and  the  resignation  of  an  Imperial  post  for  a 
martyr's  career  must  have  cost  a  hard  struggle.  Photius, 
indeed,  seems  to  have  been  aware  of  this.  For  he  tells 
us  that  the  distracted  man  "  during  the  space  of  three 
years  managed  to  hide  within  himself  and  to  soothe  to 
quietness  the  wild  beast  (of  heresy)  until,  his  heart  being 
inwardly  devoured,  and  the  yearning  for  expression 
becoming  insupportable,  he  secretly  left  the  Court "  for 
Cibossa.  He  had  less  difficulty  than  his  ideal  apostle  in 
obtaining  recognition  from  those  whom  he  had  persecuted  ; 


THE   FATE   OF   SYMEON-TITUS        107 

and,  in  fact,  was  welcomed  as  a  new  leader.  The  marvel- 
lous change  was  signalised  by  the  adoption  of  the  name 
Titus.^  But  his  maintenance  of  the  forlorn  hope  was 
brief,  for  at  the  end  of  three  years  he  was  burned  alive. 

The  immediate  occasion  of  his  condemnation  is  some- 
what puzzling,  and  indeed  inexplicable  as  it  has  come 
down  to  us.  But  as  it  illustrates  the  eagerness  with 
which  St  Paul's  words  were  discussed  by  the  Paulicians, 
we  must  not  pass  it  over.  We  are  rather  startled  to 
find  the  traitor  Justus,  the  murderer  of  Constantine- 
Silvanus,  apparently  still  frequenting  the  meetings  of  the 
sect.  But,  if  we  are  to  believe  our  authorities  at  all,  we 
can  only  suppose  that  Justus  had  urged  the  coward's  plea 
of  necessity,  or  that  the  Paulicians  were  more  forgiving 
than  religious  zealots  usually  are.  At  any  rate,  we  are 
told  that  a  debate  arose  between  this  man  and  the  new 
leader  on  the  meaning  of  Col.  i.  1 6  :  "  For  by  him  were 
all  things  created,  etc."  Unfortunately  we  are  not  told 
what  the  interpretation  of  Symeon-Titus  was,  though 
the  insinuation  is  that  he  tried  to  reconcile  the  passage 
with  the  Manichaean  denial  of  the  creation  of  matter  by 
eternal  goodness.  I  have  already  expressed  my  opinion 
that  Constantine's  renunciation  of  Manichaeism  was 
genuine  ;  and  I  cannot  help  suspecting  that  words  so 
pregnant  with  problems  impossible  of  solution  might 
very  well  cause  deadly  strife  between  two  subtle  Greeks 
without  any  reference  to  the  Zoroastrian  doctrine  of  Two 
Principles,  as  held  by  the  Manichaeans.  However  that 
may  be,  since  Justus  could  not  prevail  by  argument,  he 
appealed  to  the    Bishop    of    the  neighbouring   Coloneia. 

1  Peter  says.he  will  not  call  him  Tiros,  but  Krjros—the  whale  or  monster 
a  puerile  play  on  sounds,  now  only  interesting  as  suggesting  how  the 
vowel  7j  was  pronounced  at  that  time. 


io8  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

The  Bishop  became  inquisitor,  and  condemned,  or 
obtained  the  condemnation  of,  Symeon. 

Then  followed  the  obscure  Paul  referred  to  above, 
about  whom  nothing  is  told  us  of  any  significance  except 
that  he  had  two  sons,  Gegnesius  and  Theodore,  who 
disputed  the  pre-eminence.^  The  dispute  remained  un- 
settled so  long  as  both  were  alive,  but  Gegnesius  had 
the  honour  of  being  selected  under  Leo  the  Isaurian  for 
the  judicial  examination  previously  described.^ 

The  next  succeeding  incidents  in  the  story  do  not 
interest  us.  The  headquarters  of  Paulicianism  were 
transferred  to  its  place  of  origin,  Mananalis,  until  the 
rage  of  the  "  Romans "  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  un- 
certainty of  their  somewhat  strange  relations  with  the 
Saracens  on  the  other,  drove  them  to  seek  a  place  of  more 
safety.  It  was  during  this  time  of  uncertainty  that  one 
of  the  most  interesting  of  their  leaders  comes  into  view, 
Sergius,  called  also  Tychicus.  It  is  not  so  much  because 
of  his  own  personality  that  he  is  specially  interesting,  as 
because  the  story  of  his  perversion  or  conversion  from 
Catholicism  has  come  to  us  in  a  reasonably  probable 
form.  It  would  seem  that  he  was  not  born  within  the 
sect,^  as  were  most  of  the  successors  of  Silvanus,  but  was 
brought  up  in  the  Catholic  Church  to  the  period  of 
adolescence.     He  then  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  young 

1  Gegnesius  claimed  to  have  received  inspiration  from  his  father  who 
had  ascended  to  heaven  ;  while  Theodore  was  bolder,  and  declared  that 
he  had  his  gift  direct  from  the  Eternal.  Such  accounts,  coming  to  us 
through  a  double  deposit  of  virulent  bigotry,  must  be  taken  for  what  they 
are  worth. 

'^  See  p.  I  GO- 1. 

'  His  father  is  said  to  have  been  a  certain  Dryinus  of  Armia,  a  village 
near  the  town  of  Tabia.  That  the  boy  was  well  educated,  according  to 
the  Catholic  standard  of  the  time,  in  everything  but  religion,  may  be 
gathered  from  what  follows. 


SERGIUS  AND  THE  PAULICIAN  WOMAN    109 

woman  whose  name  is  not  given,  but  who  belonged  to 
the  Paulicians.  And  she,  seeing  in  him  a  likely  proselyte, 
introduced  the  subject  as  follows^  : — 

"  '  I  hear  of  you,  Mr  Sergius  {Kvpie  ^epyie),  that  you  have 
had  a  good  education,  and  are  skilled  in  letters,  and  are 
in  all  respects  a  worthy  man.  Tell  me,  then,  why  you 
do  not  read  the  Divine  Gospels  ? '  Then  he,  entrapped 
by  her  words,  and  not  in  the  least  suspecting  the  poison 
of  malice  concealed  within  her,  says  :  '  It  is  not  lawful 
for  us  laymen  (^Koar/uLiKoli)  to  read  them,  but  only  for  the 
priests  (lepevcri),'  She  replied  to  him  :  *  It  is  not  so,  as 
you  suppose  ;  for  there  is  no  respect  of  persons  with 
God  ;  for  he  wills  that  all  men  should  be  saved,  and 
should  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  But  since 
your  priests  make  a  trade  of  the  Word  of  God,  they  also 
keep  back  the  deeper  truths  ^  in  the  Gospels.  For  they 
do  not  read  to  the  hearer  all  that  is  written  therein  ;  but 
some  parts  they  read  and  some  they  don't,  lest  you 
should  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  For  it  is 
written  in  those  Gospels  :  "  In  that  day  many  shall  say 
unto  me.  Lord,  Lord,  have  we  not  prophesied  in  thy 
name,^  and  in  thy  name  cast  out  devils,  and  in  thy  name 
done  many  wonderful  works  ?  And  the  king,  answering, 
will  say  to  them.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  I  know 
you  not."  *     Search  and  see  if  it  is  not  thus  written.     And 

1  Petrus  Siculus,  Historia  ManichcBorum^  xxxiii. 

2  MvffT-fipia  ;  but  the  above  is  obviously  meant,  as  also  in  Matt.  xiii.  ii 
and  some  other  New  Testament  passages,  though  perhaps  not  in  all. 
For  St  Paul  seems  occasionally  to  use  the  word  in  a  sense  familiar  to 
the  secret  cults  of  his  day ;  e.o^.  Col.  i.  26.  So  also  in  the  Apocalypse, 
xvii.  5,  7. 

2  These  words  are  omitted  by  Peter,  though  given  by  Photius.  I  do 
not  think  the  omission  by  the  former  was  intentional. 

*  Here  also  Photius  follows  more  closely  the  actual  words  of  Matt, 
vii.  22, 


no  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

who  are  they  to  whom  the  Lord  will  say,  "  I  know  you 
not"?'"  "But  he,"  says  Peter  the  Silician,  "being 
without  training  or  learning,  was  dumbfounded,  and  said 
nothing." 

Peter  then  interposes  his  own  explanation  ;  but  space  is 
too  precious  to  be  occupied  by  it,  and  we  proceed  to  the 
next  interview  of  the  young  Sergius  with  his  instructress. 
He  had  been  reading  the  Gospels  now  for  the  first  time, 
and,  having  found  the  words  quoted  by  her,  was  very 
anxious  she  should  tell  him  who  were  those  false  prophets. 
But  she,  whether  from  the  feminine  arts  attributed  to 
her  by  Photius,  or  because  she  anticipated  the  "  heuristic  " 
system  of  recent  great  teachers,  and  desired  her  pupil  to 
find  out  for  himself,  would  not  satisfy  him,  but  pro- 
pounded another  question.  Quoting  the  words,  "  Many 
shall  come  from  the  east  and  the  west  and  shall  sit  down 
with  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  but  the  sons  of  the  kingdom  shall  be  cast  into 
outer  darkness,"  she  asked,  "  Who  are  the  sons  of  the 
kingdom  ? "  He  could  not  tell.  But  this  time  she 
supplied  the  answer.  "  They  are,"  she  said,  "  your 
saints  who  cast  out  devils  and  heal  the  diseases  of  men, 
whom  you  venerate  as  gods,  while  you  neglect  the  living 
and  immortal  Lord."  ^ 

The  remaining  course  of  instruction  is  not  recorded. 
We  are  only  told  that  the  Paulician  woman  went  through 
the  Gospels  with  him,  perverting  the  plain  meaning,  as 
she  herself  very  well  knew,  and  finally  fashioning  him 
into  the  most  mischievous  tool  of  Satan  that  the  accursed 


1  Photius  has  here,  "God,"  @ehv.  But  Peter's  "Lord,"  Kvpioy,  seems 
preferable.  For  the  motto  of  the  early  Paulicians  was,  like  that  of  latest 
reformers,  "  Back  to  Christ."  But  the  meaning  is  obscure,  which  may  be 
partly  owing  to  the  reporters. 


PAULICIANS  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  1 1 1 

sect  had  yet  produced.  The  above  citation  from  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  however,  seems  to  me  to  expose 
the  falsehood  of  the  accusation  against  the  Paulicians 
that  they  shared  Manichaean  contempt  for  the  Old 
Testament.  For  though  the  presence  of  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and  Jacob  in  heaven  is  here  only  indirectly  inferred  from 
the  words  spoken  by  "the  living  and  immortal  Lord," 
yet  it  is  clearly  accepted.  And  it  seems  necessarily 
implied  that  all  other  references  of  Jesus  to  the  first 
institution  of  marriage,  to  Moses,  to  David  and  the 
Prophets,  would  be  accepted  in  like  manner.  But  if  so, 
it  seems  quite  impossible  that  the  Paulicians  can  have 
denied  all  value  to  the  Old  Testament.  The  true 
Manichaeans,  as  I  suppose,  did  not  regard  such  utterances 
as  the  words  of  the  divine  Christ,  but  as  those  of  the  man 
Jesus.  There  is,  however,  no  indication  of  such  subtlety 
of  distinction  in  the  simple  talk  of  this  Paulician  woman. 
It  is  true  that  Peter  Siculus  scoffs  at  the  alleged  dis- 
honesty with  which  she  apparently  ignored  the  obvious 
explanation  that  the  disinherited  sons  of  the  kingdom 
were  the  Israelites.  But  it  may  well  be  held  that  she 
took  a  large  and  far-sighted  view  of  the  significance  of 
the  words  of  Jesus,  when  she  saw  in  them  a  warning  of 
the  precariousness  of  all  spiritual  privilege  and  super- 
natural pretensions  apart  from  true  loyalty  to  "  the  living 
and  immortal  Lord."  To  some,  her  words  may  suggest 
an  incarnate  Word,  to  others  a  personal  deity,  to  others 
again  "the  moral  ideal,"  and  to  yet  others  the  infinite 
ordered  life  of  the  universe.  But  in  any  case  the 
doctrine  she  deduced  from  the  saying  of  Jesus  is  true. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  new  leader,  Sergius  Tychicus, 
is  said  to  have  been  specially  dangerous  because  of  his 
apparent  virtues,  and  because  of  his  skill  in  making  his 


112  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

heresy  look  like  true  religion.  It  is  interesting  also  to 
learn  that  in  his  first  approaches  to  converts  he  taught 
morals  only,  and  adapted  these  to  the  words  of  the 
Gospel.  It  was  only  after  the  victim  had  been  bewitched 
by  the  beauty  of  a  moral  ideal  that  the  soul-destroying 
deceiver  made  him  swallow  the  whole  poison  of  impious 
doctrine.^  Where  all  is  obscure,  it  is  difficult  to  form  a 
confident  judgment.  But  now  let  us  suppose  that 
Sergius  began  his  instructions  by  revealing  more  of  the 
New  Testament  than  had  been  usually  heard  by  his 
uninstructed  audience.  Let  us  imagine  him  to  have 
dwelt  on  the  stirring  or  touching  moral  exhortations  in 
St  Paul's  Epistles,  such  as  Rom.  xii.,  or  i  Cor.  xiii. 
We  may  well  suppose  that  he  spoke  of  such  inspiring 
words  as  coming  from  the  spirit  of  Christ  exemplified 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  He  could  hardly  forbear, 
then,  to  suggest  how  much  better  it  was  for  men  seeking 
salvation  to  study  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  for  themselves, 
than  to  be  dependent  on  the  mediation  of  priests. 

If,  then,  he  went  on  to  expose  the  difference  between 
Church  ceremonialism  and  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  faith  ; 
if  he  insisted  that  neither  the  water  of  baptism  nor  the 
material  elements  of  communion  were  of  any  value  at  all 
except  possibly  as  symbols  to  help  concentration  of 
thought ;  still  further,  if  he  taught  that  the  veneration 
of  the  Cross  was  superstition,  the  worship  of  the  Virgin 
Mary  idolatry,  and  subjection  to  the  Catholic  Church 
spiritual  slavery,  he  would  have  done  quite  enough  to 
provoke  the  invectives  to  which  we  have  referred.  Such 
conjectures  are  based  upon  the  words  of  his  opponents 
themselves.  And  if  I  decline  to  accept  charges  made  by 
the    latter    of    gross    Manichjeism,    it    is    because    these 

'  Photius,  op.  cit.^  I.  xxii. 


DECAY   OF   THE   PAULICIANS  113 

writers  stultify  themselves  by  telling  us  almost  in  the 
same  breath  that  the  Paulicians  only  pretended  to 
abandon  Manes  in  order  to  escape  persecution,  and  were 
at  the  same  time  incorrigible  heretics,  who  preferred 
death  to  the  surrender  of  their  beliefs.^  That  these 
beliefs  were  very  imperfect,  could  they  be  compared  with 
the  ideals  of  a  Wycliffe  or  a  Wesley,  is  not  only 
possible,  but  almost  certain.  Yet  in  their  preference  of 
the  written  words  of  Jesus  and  his  greatest  apostle  to  the 
Catholic  tradition,  and  in  their  assertion  of  the  incom- 
mensurable superiority  of  the  spiritual  life  to  thauma- 
turgic  ritual,  it  is  extremely  probable  that  they  kept 
glimmering  the  sacred  spark  which  flamed  forth  in 
the  Reformation. 

The  further  vicissitudes  of  Paulicianism  are  described 
by  the  master-hand  of  Gibbon  with  luminous  brevity, 
and  those  who  care  to  follow  the  story  can  do  so  in  his 
fifty-fourth  chapter.  Briefly,  the  ministry  of  Sergius, 
extending  to  thirty-three  or  thirty-four  years,  was  the 
last  period  of  their  existence  as  purely  spiritual  reformers. 
In  speaking  of  the  experience  of  Peter  the  Sicilian  I  have 
already  anticipated  the  effects  of  a  revived  persecution, 
which  converted  them  from  scattered  groups  of  zealots 

1  As  an  instance  of  very  palpable  perversion,  take  the  following  : 
Photius  says  that  these  people  "sealed  their  prayers,  or  rather  their 
howlings,  with  the  name  of  Sergius,  saying,  The  prayer  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
shall  bring  us  mercy"  {pp.  cit,  xxi.).  Surely  the  reference  was  to  Rom. 
viii.  26,  "  The  Spirit  also  maketh  intercession  for  us,"  etc.  And  if  Sergius 
is  quoted  as  making  arrogant  or  even  blasphemous  claims  to  be  the 
doorkeeper,  and  the  shepherd,  and  "the  light  of  the  House  of  God"  till 
the  end  of  the  world,  we  must  remember  we  have  not  the  text  of  his 
epistles,  and  a  very  little  alteration  would  make  the  words  refer  to  St 
Paul  and  Christ.  As  to  the  charge  that  each  successive  Paulician  leader 
who  assumed  a  Pauline  name  (Silvanus,  Tychicus,  etc.)  claimed  to  be  a 
reincarnation  of  the  very  man  whose  name  he  assumed,  it  is  simply 
incredible. 

8 


114  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

into  guerilla  soldiers.  Their  later  leader,  Carbeas,  was 
chosen  rather  for  his  previous  military  training  than  for 
any  spiritual  gifts,  and  his  fortification  and  defence  of 
Tephrice  fully  justified  their  choice.  A  successor, 
Chrysocheir,  made  them  a  still  more  formidable  power, 
and  they  negotiated  with  the  Emperor  Basil  almost  on 
equal  terms.  They  had  forgotten  the  saying  of  Christ  : 
"  All  they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish  with  the 
sword."  But  after  about  a  century  of  defiant  independ- 
ence, their  stronghold  was  captured  ;  and  within  an 
interval  of  some  years  they  were  forcibly  deported  into 
Thrace,  where  it  was  supposed  they  might  serve  the 
political  purposes  of  the  time.  Here  they  are  said  to 
have  spread  their  opinions,  though,  it  must  be  feared,  in 
a  very  corrupt  form.^  That  they  finally  made  their  way 
westward,  as  suggested  by  Gibbon,  is  extremely  probable. 
And  if  only  a  few  had  preserved  the  Pauline  tradition,  its 
reception  by  an  emotional  population  and  in  new  sur- 
roundings might  very  well  account  for  the  religious 
revival  in  the  south  of  France  during  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  centuries. 

As  already  admitted,  the  story  of  the  Paulicians  is  in 
many  parts  obscure.  But  the  illustrations  it  offers  of  the 
relations  of  the  Church  to  the  Bible  are  clear  enough. 
And,  what  is  perhaps  more  interesting,  it  gives  a  striking 
instance  of  the  power  wielded  by  the  Gospel  and  Epistles, 
m  that  age  of  the  world,  over  minds  craving  for  reality — 
minds  dissatisfied  with  the  traditional  Church  ceremonial, 
and  wanting  a  clearer  sense  of  the  Infinite  Life  which 
earlier  and  later  fetishism   alike   had  at   once   suggested 

*  The  imputations  made  against  them  under  the  name  "Bulgarians" 
must  be  taken  as  the  slander  of  bigotry.  If  they  lived  among  an  immoral 
population,  the  vices  of  their  neighbours  would  be  attributed  to  them. 


SPIRITUAL   FUNCTION   OF  PAULICIANS  115 

and  obscured.  For  though  even  orthodox  churches  are 
now  finding  out  the  limitations  of  St  Paul,  and  are  re- 
spectfully discarding  his  laboured  theories  of  sin,  death, 
and  atonement,^  there  was  in  the  man  an  intensity  of 
moral  passion  together  with  a  searching  power  of  self- 
impartation  which  endured  far  through  the  Christian 
centuries  and  is  not  extinguished  yet.  But  this  power 
did  not  depend  upon  miracle  nor  upon  "  revelation  "  in 
the  supernatural  sense  of  the  word.  It  was  the  impact 
of  a  concentrated  moral  force  on  minds  whose  suscepti- 
bility to  it  was  the  result  of  a  long  course  of  evolution 
brought  to  fruition  by  the  whole  conditions  of  their  age. 

Protestants,  no  doubt,  prefer  to  conceive  the  experi- 
ence of  the  Paulician  in  another  form,  and  I  shall  not 
deny  its  approximate  truth.  But  it  is  not  inconsistent 
with  what  I  have  said.  A  man  whose  religion  had  largely 
consisted  in  obedience  to  priests,  when  he  was  assured, 
as  we  have  seen,  that  "  there  is  no  respect  of  persons 
with  God,"  felt  like  a  liberated  slave.  A  man  forbidden 
to  meddle  with  sacred  lore,  felt  an  accession  of  self-respect 
when  he  learned  that  God  would  have  all  men — not 
priests  alone — come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  A 
man  unable  to  think  how  his  salvation  could  depend  upon 
eating  a  consecrated  wafer  or  drinking  out  of  a  miraculous 
cup,  could  not  but  rejoice  to  hear  that  "  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  not  meat  and  drink,  but  righteousness,  peace,  and 
joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost."  To  critical  minds  the  philo- 
sophy of  the  plan  of  salvation  has  always  raised  difficulties. 
But,  for  a  plain  man  in  trouble  about  his  soul,  the  passage 
from  the  Church  doctrines  and  ordinances  to  St  Paul's 

1  See  a  notable  discourse  delivered  by  the  Rev.  R.  J.  Campbell  to 
the  Lancashire  Congregational  Union,  in  the  Free  Trade  Hall,  12th 
March  1907. 


ii6  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

declaration  of  salvation  by  faith,  as,  for  instance,  in 
Rom.  iii.,  was  like  the  issue  from  a  gloomy,  tangled 
forest  into  a  smooth,  sunny,  verdant  glade  sparkling 
with  living  waters.  In  any  case,  whether  we  believe  in 
supernatural  revelation  or  not,  the  contrast  between  the 
utterances  which  the  common  people  have  always  heard 
gladly  and  the  muffled  conventionalisms  in  which  all 
organised  religions  tend  to  get  themselves  wrapped  up 
is  apparent  enough. 

Traditional  ecclesiasticism  assumed  perhaps  its  most 
attractive  form  in  the  mission  of  Augustine  to  the  pagan 
English  as  recorded  by  the  Venerable  Bede.^  And  the 
date  of  that  mission,  close  on  the  end  of  the  sixth  century, 
makes  it  convenient  as  our  next  illustration  of  the  re- 
lations of  the  Bible  and  the  people.  True,  the  story 
itself,  as  told  by  perhaps  the  most  lovable  of  ecclesiastical 
historians,  belongs  as  literature  to  the  age  of  Charlemagne, 
which  we  have  left  behind.  But  we  are  concerned  not 
so  much  with  Bede*s  conception  of  the  event,  as  with  his 
related  facts,  which,  notwithstanding  his  tendency  to  pious 
credulity,  there  seems  only  occasional  reason  to  doubt. 

Could  anything  be  less  like  the  advent  of  St  Paul  to 
Philippi,  for  instance,  than  the  pomp  of  Augustine's 
landing  with  his  silver  cross  as  a  standard,  and  his  sacred 
picture  majestically  borne,  and  his  attendant  monks  with 
their  sounding  chant  ?  Not  that  there  is  anything  to 
condemn  in  the  innocent  arts  of  Augustine,  for  he 
came  not  only  as  the  herald  of  a  heavenly  king,  but  also 
as  an  envoy  of  that  king's  vicegerent  on  earth.  And  as 
Ethelbert's   consort   was  a   Prankish   Christian,  the   mis- 

*  We  ought,  of  course,  to  write  "  Baeda."  But  later  custom  has  too 
strongly  estabhshed  the  form  in  which  English  affection  cherishes  the 
name. 


CONVERSION   OF   THE   ENGLISH       117 

sionary  no  doubt  did  perfectly  right  to  maintain  the 
worldly  dignity  of  the  queen's  religion  in  the  sight  of 
her  husband  and  his  men.  But  we  learn  absolutely 
nothing  of  what  Augustine  said  concerning  his  gospel  in 
the  discourse  delivered,  apparently  through  a  Prankish 
interpreter.  Queen  Bertha  may  very  well  have  under- 
stood him,  but,  whatever  were  her  familiar  explanations 
in  private,  the  obstacle  of  an  interpreter  at  the  diplomatic 
meeting  must  have  greatly  marred  Augustine's  eloquence 
as  a  preacher.  True,  the  king  understood  something  of 
the  present  and  future  blessings  promised  as  a  reward  of 
conversion,  and  said  the  words  were  good,  while  the  con- 
servatism of  his  future  race  was  presaged  in  his  plea  for 
ancient  custom. 

But  the  impression  we  get  is  not  at  all  such  as  is  made 
by  the  behaviour  and  language  of  St  Paul's  hearers  whose 
consciences  were  pricked,  or  whose  fears  of  a  world  cata- 
strophe were  aroused.  What  we  gather  from  Bede's 
story  is  rather  that  the  king  considered  himself  to  have 
received  a  diplomatic  proposal,  attractive  in  many  re- 
spects from  the  advantages  it  offered,  but  threatening 
considerable  difficulties  on  account  of  the  serious  breach 
it  involved  with  the  ancient  usages  of  his  race.  That 
Augustine  mentioned  sin  and  judgment,  a  new  birth  by 
baptism,  the  privileges  of  the  Church,  and  the  promise 
of  heaven,  we  may  take  as  certain.  But  the  whole  suc- 
ceeding context  suggests  that  it  was  the  Church  and  not 
the  Bible,  or  even  the  written  Gospel,  with  which  the 
exhortations  of  the  preacher  and  the  dubitation  of  the 
hearer  were  concerned. 

Of  course,  this  prominence  of  the  Church  rather  than 
of  the  Bible,  cannot  even  by  the  most  scriptural  Protestant 
— if  the    phrase   may  be   allowed  for   the    moment — be 


ii8  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

made  a  fault  in  Augustine.  For  he  could  not  help  him- 
self. His  whole  baggage  probably  did  not  contain  more 
of  the  Bible  than  the  passages  incorporated  with  Church 
services.  And  if  it  be  said  that  St  Paul  was  in  even 
worse  case,  because,  when  he  set  out  on  his  missions,  not 
a  word  of  the  New  Testament  had  been  written,  we  must 
remember  that  not  only  was  his  memory  stored  with 
almost  the  whole  text  of  the  old  Scriptures,  but  he  found 
the  sacred  book  in  every  synagogue  ;  and  not  only  the 
Jews  of  the  dispersion,  but  innumerable  Gentile  proselytes 
or  half-proselytes  were  familiar  with  the  Greek  version 
of  the  Seventy.  His  preaching,  therefore,  except  in  the 
doubtful  case  of  Athens,^  was  always  predominantly 
scriptural,  because  the  Septuagint  was  his  mainstay.  He 
spurned  the  idea  of  any  authority  in  the  Apostolic  Church,^ 
at  least  over  him.  But  through  the  necessity  of  the  case, 
not  the  Bible,  but  the  Church,  was  Augustine's  mainstay, 
and  guaranteed  his  commission. 

The  indirect  relations  of  Man  and  the  Bible  in  that  age, 
and  indeed  in  all  ages  from  the  apostolic  time  to  the 
triumph  of  the  printing  press,  are  also  illustrated  by  a 
curious  saying  of  Bede  at  the  beginning  of  his  work, 
where,  however,  he  is  speaking  of  his  own  day. 

"  This  land  at  the  present  time  studies  and  confesses  one 
and  the  same  science  of  supreme  truth  and  genuine  majesty 
in  the  languages  of  five  nations  ;  that  is,  of  the  English,  the 
Britons,  the  Scots,  the  Picts,  and  the  Latins,  in  accordance 


1  Doubtful,  not  only  because  of  historical  uncertainty,  but  because,  if 
the  outline  of  the  discourse  be  authentic,  it  is  ridiculous  to  suppose  that 
his  reference  to  coming  judgment  was  huddled  up  in  the  few  concluding 
words  handed  down  to  us.  And  if  he  oflfered  any  confirmation  of  his 
words,  he  must  have  referred  to  the  Jewish  oracles. 

2  Cf.  Galatians,  and  2  Cor.,  passim. 


BEDE   AND   THE   BIBLE  119 

with  the  number  of  the  books  in  which  the  divine  law 
was  written,! — that  science  which,  by  meditation  of  the 
Scriptures,  has  become  the  common  property  of  all  other 
parts  of  the  world." 

Whose  was  the  "  meditation  of  Scripture  '*  which 
permeated  as  with  a  leaven  so  many  nations  ?  Certainly 
not  that  of  the  unlearned  multitude,  who  did  not  so  much 
as  know  what  the  Bible  was,  except  that  it  was  God's 
charter  to  the  Church.  The  meditation  was  that  of 
popes,  bishops,  priests,  and  monks,  who  conveyed  the 
truth  to  the  multitude  as  the  latter  were  able  to  receive  it. 
And  "  the  science  of  supreme  truth,"  "  confessed  in  the 
five  languages,"  could  not  be  the  Bible,  for  only  fragments 
of  it  had  been  translated  ;  but  it  was  the  creeds  and  such 
expressions  of  obedience  to  the  Church  as  had  by  means 
of  "  glosses  "  been  made  accessible  to  the  vulgar.^  Thus 
a  devoted  priest  was  able  to  exult  that  the  knowledge  of 
the  Lord  had  already  covered  the  earth,  though  he  was 
well  aware  that  the  Bible  was  a  sealed  book  to  all  but  a 
small  minority  even  of  Christian  men. 

One  other  illustration  I  shall  permit  myself  to  take 
from  this  venerable  father  of  the  English  Church.  For 
it  is  truly  a  significant  fact  that  in  relating  the  futile 
conference  between  the  Augustinians  and  the  represen- 
tative of  the  older  British  Church,  he  gives  us  no  hint 
whatever  of  scriptural  arguments  adduced  on  the  one  side 
or  on  the  other.  Indeed,  the  subjects  of  contention  seem 
to  have  been  exclusively  points  of  Church  tradition  and 
custom,  on  which  even   the  latest  books  of  the  Canon 

1  The  Pentateuch. 

^  The  poetic  rendering  of  Scripture  story  by  Casdmon  cannot  have 
been  in  the  mind  of  Bede  when  writing  the  above,  for  Casdmon's  poems 
were  known  only  in  one  language. 


120  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

could  throw  no  light.  Yet  there  was  one  exception. 
For,  on  the  ancient  controversy  as  to  Easter  Day,  the 
Fourth  Gospel  might  well  have  been  quoted  by  the 
British,  if,  indeed,  they  were  sufficiently  familiar  with  it. 
But  both  sides  were  apparently  so  utterly  wanting  in 
scriptural  proofs,  that,  according  to  Bede's  account, 
Augustine  had  recourse  to  the  desperate  expedient  of 
test  by  miracle,  and  actually  triumphed  by  healing  a  sick 
man.-^ 

The  Britons  were  at  once  more  rational  and  more  truly 
religious  when,  being  still  unconvinced  even  by  the 
miracle,  they  agreed  to  the  suggestion  of  a  venerable 
hermit,  that  they  should  be  guided  at  their  next  meeting 
by  the  consistency  or  otherwise  of  Augustine's  bearing 
with  the  ideal  of  Christian  courtesy.  It  is  not  said  that 
they  had  in  mind  St  PauFs  words  :  "  In  honour  preferring 
one  another,'*  but  certainly  those  words  might  have 
suggested  the  omen  by  which  they  now  agreed  to  be 
guided.  They  arranged  to  let  the  Roman  emissaries 
arrive  and  be  seated  first.  If,  then,  on  their  appearance, 
Augustine  should  rise  to  receive  his  spiritual  brethren 
with  the  courtesy  of  a  Christian  gentleman,  they  agreed 
to  consider  the  sign  favourable,  and  to  renew  the  con- 
ference with  a  hope  of  agreement.  But  Augustine,  with 
incredible  fatuity,  remained  seated  in  haughty  assumption 
of  spiritual  lordship  ;  whereupon  the  Britons  hardened 
their  hearts  and  the  schism  remained  unhealed.^ 

1  Aliquis  ager.  We  may  suspect  the  blindness  ;  otherwise  the  story 
may  very  well  be  true.  Many  forms  of  disease  would  yield  to  the 
amazement  and  nervous  excitement  of  such  an  experience. 

2  Whether  the  extinction  of  the  primitive  British  Church  is  a  matter 
for  regret,  I  do  not  here  consider.  But  I  am  unable  to  agree  with  the 
view  held  by  some  Protestants  that  it  was  pure  in  doctrine,  and  apostolic 
in  its  simplicity.     See  J.  W.  Willis  Bund,  Celtic  Church  in  Wales. 


THE   VERSION   OF   ULPHILAS  121 

The  sixth  and  the  fifth  centuries  afford  no  illustrations 
suitable  to  my  purpose,  until  we  come  to  the  age  of 
Ambrose  and  the  great  Augustine  of  Hippo.  But  it  was 
during  these  times  that  large  numbers  of  the  Teutonic 
hordes,  Lombards,  Goths,  and  Vandals,  became  nominal 
adherents  of  the  Church.  That  the  work  of  Ulphilas  had 
anything  to  do  with  this  multitudinous  conversion  is 
simply  incredible.  His  translation  of  the  Gospels  is 
an  interesting  fact.  But  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that 
it  could  reach  the  hands  or  the  ears  of  more  than  an 
insignificant  number  of  his  own  flock  in  Maetia  ;  and 
the  adoption  of  the  new  religion  by  the  hordes  of 
various  dialects  who  poured  across  the  Danube,  and 
descended  from  the  Alps,  is  to  be  attributed  to  quite 
other  causes. 

These  causes  are  well  described  by  Milman  in  his 
History  of  Latin  Christianity^  and  amongst  them  no 
mention  is  made  of  the  Bible.  The  palaces,  the  courts  of 
justice,  the  theatres  and  amphitheatres  of  the  conquered 
Romans  must  have  seemed  to  the  simple  barbarians  the 
work  of  potent  magicians.  The  great  churches  with  their 
marble  and  gold  adornments,  imposing  ceremonial,  and 
enchanting  music,  would  suggest  the  secret  of  such  pre- 
ternatural gifts.  And  if,  notwithstanding  the  apparent 
devotion  of  the  Romans  to  their  God,  he  had  withheld 
victory  from  their  arms,  surely  it  was  because  he  was 
tired  of  their  effeminate  vices,  and  was  ready  to  welcome 
purer  and  more  valiant  vassals.  Christ  became  the 
Teutonic  God  of  War,  and  in  their  devotion  to  the  Cross 
these  warriors  profited  even  more  than  Constantine  from 
the  heavenly  omen,  in  hoc  signo  vinces.  I  can  well 
believe  that  many  a  stalwart  soldier  had,  like  Pepin,  a 
heart    susceptible    to    the    pathetic    scenes   portrayed    in 


122  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

the  Gospel.  But  that  the  reading  and  exposition  of 
Scripture  played  any  such  part  in  the  conversion  of 
these  northern  hordes  as  it  does  now,  in  the  reports 
of  missionary  operations  among  modern  heathen,  is 
an  idea  utterly  incongruous  with  the  records  of 
the   times. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    BIBLE    IN    THE    CHURCHES    SILVER    AGE 

When  we  get  back  to  the  centuries  of  the  great  preachers 
of  the  Church's  silver  age,  we  find  the  Bible  holding  a 
position  much  more  akin  to  that  with  which  we  were 
familiar  in  the  nineteenth  century  than  was  at  all  possible 
during  the  Middle  and  Darkest  Ages.  More  akin,  I  say, 
but  not  identical,  or  even  very  similar.  For  it  was  not  in 
the  hands  of  the  unlearned,  nor  did  it  take  such  a  place 
in  the  education  of  even  Christian  children  as  it  did  in 
later  times.^  For  even  the  great  Augustine,  the  son  of 
a  saintly  mother's  vows  and  prayers,  knew,  as  a  boy, 
little  if  anything  of  the  Scriptures,  except  that  the  New 
Testament  was  written  in  very  inferior  Greek,  and  the 
Old  Testament  version  in  even  worse  Latin.  Yet  during 
the  fifth  and  the  fourth  centuries  the  Bible  was  constantly 
the  subject  of  popular  expositions  to  large  audiences. 
And  if  the  laity  could  not  easily  obtain  copies,  or  even 
could  not  read,  at  any  rate  they  heard  the  entire  text  of 
large   parts   of  the   Bible   read   by   the   expositor  in   the 

^  The  case  of  Timothy  is  not  in  point.  Not  only  does  it  belong  to 
another  age,  but  though  his  father  is  said  to  have  been  a  Greek,  his 
mother  evidently  followed  her  Jewish  traditions  in  teaching  her  boy  the 
Old  Testament. 

123 


124  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

course  of  his  exposition.  Thus  in  the  last  book  of  The 
City  of  God^  Augustine  attributes  popular  familiarity 
with  the  miracles  of  Scripture  to  the  practice  of  the 
Church  in  prescribing  the  public  reading  of  the  canonical 
books.  This,  he  says,  fixed  the  facts  firmly  in  the 
memory  of  the  common  people.  A  passage  also  in  his 
expositions  of  St  John  suggests  that  those  who  could 
read  sometimes  read  aloud  in  private  to  those  who  could 
not.^  The  importance  thus  given  to  the  Bible  and  to 
"the  ministry  of  the  Word"  in  that  age  receives  most 
interesting  illustration  from  Augustine's  own  account  of 
his  conversion  under  the  combined  influence  of  the 
preaching  of  Ambrose  and  his  own  reading.  To  a 
considerable  extent  the  thrilling  story  anticipates  the 
experience  of  many  a  modern  sinner  and  unbeliever, 
who,  between  an  earnest,  powerful  preacher  and  an  open 
Bible,  is  gradually  brought  to  his  knees  and  finds 
salvation. 

Yet  the  differences  are  obvious,  though  they  are  too 
often  overlooked  by  those  who  suppose  that  precisely  in 
proportion  as  we  approach  Christian  origins  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  Bible  increases.  For,  to  Augustine, 
as  to  Bede,  the  Church  came  before  the  Bible,  inasmuch 
as  it  was  upon  the  authority  of  the  Church  that  the  Bible 
was  received.^     And  the  reiterated  and  emphatic  employ- 

*  Lib.  xxii.,  cap.  viii.  The  puerilities  which  follow  do  not  here  concern 
us.  "Leguntur  quippe  in  populis  ut  credantur."  The  words  do  not 
distinctly  mention  reading  in  the  church,  but  the  whole  context  implies  it. 

2  On  the  Gospel  of  St  John,  Tract,  cxii.  He  is  referring  to  his  own 
work  on  the  harmony  of  the  Gospels.  But  the  practice  must  certainly 
have  included  the  Gospels  themselves. 

^  "  Sed  me  non  sinebas  aliis  fluctibus  cogitationis  auferri  ab  ea  fide,  qua 
credebam  et  esse  te,  et  esse  incommutabilem  substantiam  tuam,  et  esse 
de  hominibus  curam  et  judicium  tuum,  et  in  Christo,  filio  tuo,  domino 
nostro,  atque  scripturis  Sanctis,  quas  ecclesias  tuae  catholicae  commendaret 


AUGUSTINE'S   SACRAMENTALISM 


125 


ment  of  the  epithet  "  catholic,"  where  no  spiritual 
universalism  can  possibly  be  meant,  shows  that  Augustine 
was  a  firm  believer  in  the  theory  of  a  church  supernaturally 
founded  by  Jesus  upon  the  delegated  authority  of  the 
apostles,  and  guaranteed  against  any  real  schism  by  the 
ever-immanent  Holy  Spirit,  to  whose  presence  and  gifts  no 
schismatic  congregation  could  make  any  but  a  blasphemous 
claim.  In  a  word,  the  Church  in  Augustine's  conception 
of  Christianity  had,  altogether  apart  from  the  Bible,  a 
position  and  supremacy  which  to  the  nineteenth  century 
Bible  Christian  had  become  inconceivable. 

Further,  the  sacramentalism  of  Augustine's  religion 
widely  separates  it  from  simple  Bible  religion  as  taught 
in  the  last  century.  Both,  indeed,  belong  to  those 
Oriental  religions  of  which  Dr  J.  G.  Frazer  says  that  they 
"  inculcated  the  communion  of  the  soul  with  God  and  its 
eternal  salvation  as  the  only  objects  worth  living  for  : 
objects  in  comparison  with  which  the  prosperity  and  even 
the  existence  of  the  State  sank  into  insignificance."^  But 
the  methods  of  salvation  were  different.  For,  to  the 
modern  evangelical  Protestant,  salvation  by  faith  has 
been  quite  independent  of  the  Church,  except  so  far  as 
faith  may  come  by  hearing.  But,  to  Augustine,  faith 
could  only  be  realised  and  acted  out  by  baptism  and 
obedience  to  the  Church.  Indeed,  though  in  Augustine's 
account  of  his  conversion  there  is  much  said  about  his 
sins,  in  regard  to  which   he   betrays  some   strange  ideas 

autoritas,  viam  et  posuisse  salutis  humanse  ad  earn  vitam  quae  post  banc 
mortalem  futura  est."  The  reference  to  Christ  in  conjunction  with  the 
Scripture  makes  no  difference  to  Augustine's  doctrine  of  Church  authority. 
For  all  that  was  known  of  Christ,  whether  by  Scripture  or  tradition, 
depended  for  its  validity  on  that  authority.  No  modern  Bible  man,  say 
a  Spurgeon  or  a  Moody,  would  have  written  so. 
^  Isis,  A  tits,  and  Osiris^  p.  194. 


126  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

of  moral  proportion,^  and  though  it  would  be  totally 
unjust  to  minimise  his  desire  for  moral  regeneration, 
yet  his  Confessions  obviously  suggest  that  the  misbeliefs 
of  his  youth  and  adolescence  oppressed  his  conscience 
more  than  lying,  selfishness,  or  impurity.  His  aspiration 
after  communion  with  God  is  not  at  all  out  of  harmony 
with  the  most  spiritual  forms  of  religion  in  later  days, 
or  with  its  prophetic  instinct  of  the  future.^  But  for 
Augustine  one  essential  condition  of  communion  with 
God  was  union  with  the  Church,  access  to  her  sacraments, 
and  obedience  to  her  behests.  Now  this  kind  of 
Christianity  is  practically  identical  with  that  of  the  Greek 
and  Roman  and  Anglican  Churches.  But  to  such  as 
accept  the  pass-word  "the  Bible  and  the  Bible  alone," 
it  is  entirely  alien.  The  idea,  therefore,  that  the 
emergence  of  the  Bible  in  the  nineteenth  century  was 
simply  its  restoration  to  the  place  it  had  occupied  in  the 
times  before  the  spiritual  empire  of  the  Pope,  finds  no 
justification  in  Augustine's  treatment  of  the  sacred  book. 
His  expositions  are  sometimes  noble,  occasionally  sublime, 
but  often  also  trivial  and  even  puerile.     But  whatever 

^  E.g.f  his  lying  and  discourtesy  to  his  mother,  when  he  deserted  her 
under  false  pretences  on  the  quay  at  Carthage,  evidently  does  not  weigh 
upon  his  conscience  nearly  so  much  as  his  early  Manichaeism.  The  fate 
of  his  apparently  gifted  illegitimate  son  did  not  seem  to  grieve  him  so 
keenly  as  the  loss  of  a  friend.  Even  when  he  began  to  feel  the  influence 
of  Ambrose,  he  heartlessly  separated  from  his  faithful  concubine,  with 
the  view  of  an  advantageous  marriage ;  and  then,  as  the  intended  bride 
was  of  pre-nuptial  age,  he  could  not  endure  to  be  without  a  mistress,  but 
must,  temporarily,  supply  the  place  of  the  discarded  woman.  Besides, 
amid  all  the  mourning  over  his  own  soul's  pollution,  there  is  not,  so  far 
as  I  remember,  a  word  of  pity  for  the  woman,  or  regret  for  the  dishonour 
done  to  womanhood.  Of  course,  such  defective  morality  is  characteristic, 
not  so  much  of  the  man,  as  of  the  social  standard  of  his  ecclesiastical 
surroundings.     But  that  is  precisely  my  point. 

*  See,  for  instance,  Spinoza  on  "The  Intellectual  Love  of  God," 
Ethics,  Part  V. 


SURVIVALS   OF   PAGANISM  127 

their  character,  they  always  imply  the  supremacy  of  the 
Church,  and  the  supernatural  efficacy  of  sacraments, 
and  are  therefore  totally  inconsistent  with  the  Bible 
Protestantism  of  a  later  day. 

If  I  recall  likewise  the  relics  of  paganism  surviving  in 
the  religion  of  Augustine  and  his  mother  Monica,  this  is 
not  so  much  with  the  idea  of  emphasising  the  difference 
between  their  Christianity  and  that  of  the  nineteenth 
century — for  indeed  paganism,  in  the  form  of  fetishism, 
is  with  us  still — but  rather  for  the  purpose  of  helping  us 
to  realise  the  actual  mental  and  spiritual  atmosphere  to 
which  the  piety  of  Monica  and  the  expositions  of  Augustine 
were  adapted.  Of  the  former  we  are  told  by  her  son  that 
in  Africa  she  was  in  the  habit  of  depositing  offerings  of 
food  and  wine  at  the  tombs  of  saints  and  martyrs.  But 
when  she  followed  her  son  to  Milan,  Ambrose  objected 
to  the  practice,  partly  because  it  was  sometimes  made  an 
excuse  for  excessive  drinking,  and  partly  because  it  too 
closely  resembled  the  pagan  parentalia}  Augustine 
praises  her  for  the  readiness  with  which  she  submitted  to 
the  authority  of  the  Church  ;  but  there  is  no  mention  of 
any  appeal  to  Scripture  in  condemnation  of  the  practice. 
It  is  remarkable,  however,  that  in  Africa  she  had  made 
these  offerings  for  many  years  without  rebuke  ;  and  her 
evident  unconsciousness  of  doing  anything  unusual 
among  Christians,  justifies  the  inference  that  the  heathen 
observance  was  the  subject  of  episcopal  connivance, 
if  not  approval.  Yet  it  is  obvious  that  the  state 
of    mind  to  which   offerings   of  food  and   drink  to  the 

1  See  J.  G.  Frazer's  Adonis^  Attis^  and  Osiris^  pp.  240,  etc.,  for  the 
universality  of  the  custom.  We  are  not  told  whether  Monica  made  her 
offerings  at  the  season  of  the  Parentalia  or  on  the  anniversary  of  each 
saint's  death.  But  the  former  is  more  likely,  if  we  may  argue  from  the 
reasons  given  by  Ambrose  for  his  objection. 


128  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

dead  seemed  appropriate,  must  have  been  still  largely- 
pagan. 

Augustine  himself,  when  he  came  under  the  influence 
of  Ambrose,  had  so  recently  emerged  from  Manichaeism, 
that,  if  my  notion  of  the  origin  of  this  heresy  be  correct, 
there  is  little  wonder  that  relics  of  paganism  attached 
themselves  to  his  religion.  Now,  his  thrilling  story  of 
his  spiritual  conflict  in  a  garden  with  the  powers  of  dark- 
ness within  him,  reaches  its  climax  in  a  resort  to  the 
entirely  pagan  expedient  of  sortes  biblicde^  book  omens, 
obtained  by  opening  at  random  the  pages  of  the  volume 
consulted,  and  reading  the  first  words  that  met  the  eye.^ 
As  is  well  known,  the  Homeric  books  had  often  been 
used  by  pagans  for  the  same  purpose.  And  though 
Augustine  justifies  his  action  by  the  example  of  holy 
Antony,  with  whose  story  he  had  quite  recently  become 
acquainted,  yet  the  practice  of  divination  involved  is 
distinctly  heathen.  Nor  is  that  fact  at  all  invalidated  by 
the  continuance  of  the  custom  even  into  Protestant  times. 

It  is  curious  that  Augustine,  when  in  his  agony  he 
heard  the  shrill  voice  in  the  neighbouring  garden  repeat- 
ing tolle^  lege — "Take  it  up  and  read,"  should  only 
have  tried  to  remember  whether  such  words  were  used 
in  any  children's  game.  The  customs  of  African  school- 
masters must  have  been  very  diflrerent  from  those  of 
other  regions  and  times  if  he  had  not  often  heard  them 
thundered  in  the  ears  of  his  childhood.  We  have  heard 
them  ourselves  long  ago,  though  perhaps  in  a  different 
form — "  Turn  it  up,  turn  it  up  !  " — when  our  rendering 


1  According  to  Tischendorf,  the  ancient  volumina  or  rolls  had  been 
changed  to  paged  books,  with  several  columns  on  a  page,  before  the  third 
century  A.D.  The  book  of  the  "  Apostle,"  which  Augustine  opened  on  the 
garden  seat  where  Alypius  was  sitting,  was,  no  doubt,  a  paged  book. 


AUGUSTINE'S   "WELTANSCHAUUNG"   129 

did  not  agree  with  lexicon  authority.  But,  however  that 
may  be,  the  child's  voice  mimicking  a  schoolmaster's  orders, 
sent  Augustine  back  to  where  he  had  left  the  sacred  book 
on  the  bench  on  which  his  friend  was  sitting.  The  book, 
be  it  observed,  was  neither  the  Bible  nor  the  New 
Testament,  but  the  "  Apostle"  ;  that  is,  presumably,  the 
collection  of  St  Paul's  Epistles,  possibly  also  including 
the  Acts.  Augustine  opened  the  book  at  haphazard,  and, 
glancing  at  the  first  words,  read  :  "  Not  in  rioting  and 
drunkenness,  not  in  chambering  and  wantonness,  not  in 
strife  and  envying  :  but  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
and  make  not  provision  for  the  flesh,  to  fulfil  the  lusts 
thereof"  (Rom.  xiii.  13,  14). 

But  the  relics  of  paganism  in  Augustine  were  more 
deeply  rooted  than  could  be  inferred  from  the  mere 
habit  of  divination.  And  as  in  this  respect  he  was 
eminently  representative  of  the  Church  in  his  day,  a 
short  examination  of  his  most  characteristic  pagan  tradi- 
tions may  help  us  to  estimate  the  immensity  of  the  change 
that  has  been  evolved  in  the  relations  of  Church  and  Bible 
since  his  time.  Notwithstanding  the  vein  of  mysticism 
constantly  recurrent  in  the  vast  deposit  of  his  writings, 
it  is  clear  that  when  Augustine  finally  abandoned 
Manichaeism  he  reverted  to  the  "  Weltanschauung  " — or 
world-idea — common  to  pagans  and  Jews  alike.  And 
when  I  say  "to  pagans  and  Jews,"  I  do  not  for  a 
moment  forget  that  the  monotheism  shared  by  the  later 
Jews  with  some  pre-Christian  heathen  philosophers, 
enabled  them  to  give  a  greater  dignity  to  the  concep- 
tion of  a  world-creation  than  had  been  compatible  with 
earlier  mythology.  But  the  three-storied  structure — 
comprising  heaven,  earth,  and  hell,  or  Hades  or 
Sheol — was  practically  identical  in  the  everyday  thoughts 

9 


I30  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

of  Jew  and  pagan  alike.  It  was,  however,  much  more 
pagan  than  Jewish,  since  it  was  immeasurably  older 
than  the  compilation  of  the  Mosaic  myths.  Indeed,  it 
was  a  conception  inevitable,  so  long  as  men's  experi- 
ence was  bounded  by  firmament,  earth-plain,  night,  and 
dreams. 

Now  Augustine,  on  surrendering  Manichaeism,  embraced 
his  mother's  belief  that  this  limited  experience  of  man 
had  been  enlarged  by  supernatural  revelation  ;  and  the 
fundamental,  or  at  any  rate  the  initial  fact  revealed,  was 
that  "  in  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the 
earth."  Notwithstanding  his  subtle  speculations  about 
the  metaphysics  of  creation,  he  did  not  deny  the  inter- 
pretation put  upon  it  by  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  :  "  Through  faith  we  understand  that  the  worlds 
were  framed  by  the  word  of  God,  so  that  things  which 
are  seen  were  not  made  of  things  which  do  appear."  In 
other  phrase,  heaven,  the  earth-plain,  and  Hades  were  at 
a  definite  period  called  into  existence  by  the  fiat  of 
an  indefinite  personal  Being  entirely  and  essentially  dis- 
tinct from  the  worlds  he  made,  a  Being  henceforward 
related  to  those  worlds  as  a  supreme  despotic  sovereign 
is  to  the  realms  he  owns.  Let  it  be  granted  that  the 
idea  of  fatherhood,  superposed  even  by  pagans  ^  on  this 
notion  of  a  divine  despotism,  was  enlarged  and  refined 
and  arrayed  in  many  attributes  of  tenderness  by  the 
genius  of  Christianity.  Still  the  divine  imperialism 
underlay  it,  a  sovereignty  acting  by  personal  will,  adapt- 
ing its  decrees  to  changing  times,  and  much  more  drastic 
than  any  earthly  kingship,  in  that  it  was  omniscient  and 
marked  for  judgment  not  only  the  outward  behaviour  of 

^  As  recognised  in  the  speech  attributed  to  St  Paul  on  Mars  hill, 
Acts  xvii. 


EARLY  BIBLICAL  "WELTANSCHAUUNG'*  131 

every  individual    subject,  but   his  inmost   thoughts  and 
most  secret  motions. 

To  such  a  limited  conception  of  the  immeasurable 
universe  and  its  government  the  Augustinian  and  Middle 
Age  theory  of  Church  and  Bible,  though  in  one  aspect 
supernatural,  was  in  another  sense  eminently  natural. 
For  it  was  in  the  highest  degree  unlikely  that  the  personal 
sovereign  who  ruled  such  a  finite  domain  should  have 
left  his  subjects  without  any  knowledge  of  himself  or  any 
directions  as  to  their  duty  towards  him.  The  Church, 
therefore,  and  the  Bible  filled  an  obvious  gap  in  the 
scheme  of  things.  For  the  Church  was  a  continuation  of 
the  revelation  consummated  in  the  person  of  the  Supreme 
Sovereign's  incarnate  Son  ;  and  the  Scriptures  were  col- 
lectively the  Church's  sacred  charter  dictated  by  the  Spirit 
to  holy  men  of  old.  But  the  authority  of  this  charter 
lay  in  the  witness  borne  to  it  by  the  Church,  which  had, 
from  time  to  time,  guaranteed  the  divinity  of  each  book 
or  collection  of  books  as  it  appeared.  And  only  the 
same  competent  and  indispensable  witness  could  give 
authoritative  interpretation  to  the  words  of  the  Book. 

Readers  of  Augustine  sometimes  wonder  how  a  man 
of  the  intellectual  strength  shown  by  the  design,  and, 
with  some  obvious  exceptions,  by  the  details  of  his 
City  of  God^  could  have  descended  to  the  credulity  and 
puerility  characteristic  of  his  references  to  contempor- 
ary miracles,  and  of  his  distortions  of  Scripture  for  the 
sake  of  a  feeble  and  uninteresting  symbolism.  The  same 
man  who,  in  opening  his  lectures  on  St  John,  described 
that  apostle's  inspiration  by  one  of  the  most  majestic 
metaphors  in  all  literature,  could  stop  beneath  the  very 
shadow  of  the  Cross,  as  he  approached  the  conclusion  of 
his  course,  to  note  that  the  reed  used  by  the  executioners 


132 


MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 


to  lift  the  vinegar  to  the  lips  of  Jesus,  was  a  mystic 
symbol  of  the  Scriptures.  I  shall  venture  to  put  the 
passages  side  by  side,  for  the  comparison  speaks  volumes. 
At  the  portals  of  the  Gospel,  then,  he  says  : — 

"  This  John,  dear  brethren,  was  of  those  mountains  con- 
cerning which  it  is  written,  '  Let  the  mountains  receive  peace 
for  thy  people,  and  the  hills  righteousness.'  The  mountains 
are  exalted  souls  j  the  hills  are  lesser  souls.  But  to  this  end 
do  the  mountains  receive  peace,  that  the  hills  may  receive 
righteousness.  What  is  the  righteousness  that  the  hills 
receive  ?  Faith  ;  because  the  righteous  doth  live  by  faith. 
But  the  lesser  souls  would  not  receive  faith  unless  the 
grander  souls,  called  *  mountains,'  were  illuminated  by  the 
eternal  wisdom  itself  [ab  ipsa  Sapientia)^  in  order  that  they 
may  transmit  to  little  ones  what  little  ones  may  be  able  to 
receive,  so  that  the  hills  dwell  in  confidence^  because  the 
mountains  receive  peace.  .  .  .  Thus,  then,  my  brethren, 
John  was  of  these  mountains.  ...  He  lived  in  contempla- 
tion of  the  divinity  of  the  Word.  How  glorious  was  this 
mountain,  how  exalted  !  He  had  risen  above  all  the  summits 
of  the  world  j  he  had  soared  above  all  the  fields  of  air  ; 
he  had  transcended  even  the  very  stars  ;  he  had  passed 
beyond  the  choirs  and  legions  of  angels.  For  unless  he 
had  risen  above  all  things  created,  he  could  not  have  attained 
to  him  by  whom  all  things  were  made.   .   .   ." 

Perhaps  a  less  spiritual  orator,  more  intent  on  his  own 
eloquence  than  on  his  subject,  would  have  forced  the 
suggested  mountain  scene  more  definitely  upon  his 
hearers.  With  Augustine  the  image  served  his  purpose 
and  dissolved  away.  But  we  may  please  ourselves  by 
remembering  Alpine  scenes,  where  a  snowy  dome  touch- 
ing the  sky  gathers  the  light  of  heaven  about  itself  to 

1  This  is  not  a  literal  rendering  of  vivere  ex  fide  colles^  but  it  gives  the 
suggestive  picture. 


AUGUSTINE'S   BONDAGE  133 

reflect  it  far  and  wide,  and  receives  the  waters  of  the 
firmament  to  send  them  singing  round  the  lower  hills  on 
which  are  grouped  the  villages  receiving  in  those  waters 
from  the  sky  both  purity  and  life.  In  strange  contrast 
to  this  poetic  and  pregnant  metaphor  we  find  the  follow- 
ing in  the  exposition  of  John  xix.  29  : — 

"  The  mode  in  which  the  sponge  could  be  applied  to  his 
lips  when  he  was  lifted  on  the  Cross  high  above  the  ground 
need  not  concern  us.  For,  as  we  read  in  other  Evangelists, 
though  our  author  has  omitted  the  fact,  it  was  by  means  of 
a  reed  that  this  drink  contained  in  the  sponge  was  lifted  to 
the  upper  part  of  the  Cross.  Now,  by  the  reed  was 
symbolised  the  Scripture  which  was  fulfilled  by  this  action. 
For  just  as  we  speak  of  the  Greek  or  Latin  tongue^  or  any 
other  mode  of  speech  produced  by  the  tongue,  so  a  reed 
(pen)  may  be  spoken  of  as  though  it  were  the  letter  which 
is  written  by  the  reed.  I  admit  ^  that  with  us  it  is  a  familiar 
and  recognised  habit  to  speak  of  articulate  utterances  of  the 
human  voice  as  "  tongues."  ^  Still,  just  in  proportion  as  it 
is  contrary  to  custom  to  speak  of  Scripture  as  a  reed,  in 
that  proportion  is  the  expression  here  the  more  (obviously) 
mystical  and  symbolic." 

In  the  following  sentences  Augustine  refers  to  the 
incident  as  the  last  item  in  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy 
required  before  the  death  of  Jesus  : — "  Then  because 
nothing  remained,  which  must  needs  be  accomplished 
before  he  died  ....  he  bowed  his  head  and  gave  up 
the  ghost."  We  are  thus  told  to  believe  that  the  divine 
hero  of  the  sacred  tragedy  was  consciously  calculating  in 
his  last  moments  how  many  ancient  predictions  remained 

1  This  is  practically  the  force  of  sed  here,  "  I  know  what  you  would 
say,  etc." 

2  Understand,  "while  the  reed  as  an  expression  for  a  written  word 
is  unknown," 


134  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

to  be  justified,  and  being  sure  that  this  was  the  last,  he 
cried,  "  It  is  finished."  It  would  be  hard  to  find  in  the 
pages  of  mocking  unbelievers  a  more  cruel  travesty  of  an 
event  that  has  held  the  world  in  awe.^ 

How  are  we  to  account  for  such  amazing  inconsistencies 
of  thought  and  feeling  ?  It  may  be  said  that  in  his 
greater  utterances  Augustine  followed  his  own  genius  or 
inspiration,  while  in  his  puerilities  he  spoke  the  ecclesi- 
astical dialect  of  the  time.  Now,  if  this  be  the  explana- 
tion— as  I  am  disposed  to  think  it  is — it  affords  an 
instructive  illustration  of  the  relations  of  the  Bible  and 
the  Church,  not  only  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  but 
in  all  the  centuries  until  the  myth  of  creation  began  to 
dissolve  away  under  historical  and  scientific  criticism. 
The  contemplations  of  the  great  Churchman,  so  far  as  he 
felt  and  submitted  to  the  dominion  of  the  Churchy  were  limited 
to  the  finite  realm,  heaven,  earth,  and  hell,  of  which  a  god, 
conceived  on  human  analogies,  was  the  absolute,  autocratic, 
immediate  sovereign.  This  sovereign  must  have  revealed 
himself — so  it  was  assumed  ;    and  if  so,  that  revelation 

^  Augustine's  whole  treatment  of  the  Johannine  narrative  of  the  death 
of  Jesus  is  in  miserably  disappointing  contrast  with  the  nobility  of  his 
introductory  lecture  on  the  Gospel.  It  is  almost  universally  admitted 
now  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  of  unknown  authorship,  and  was  related 
to  the  actual  facts  somewhat  as  the  imaginations  of  the  Greek  tragedians 
were  to  the  germ  of  popular  tradition  out  of  which  genius  evoked  them. 
And  indeed,  in  the  brief,  self-restrained  picture  given  by  this  Gospel  of 
the  Crucifixion,  with  some  touches  of  suppressed  passion,  there  seems  to 
me  to  be  a  sort  of  y^schylean  grandeur — the  solitary  figure  of  a  suffering 
God  projected  against  infinite  mystery.  But,  in  dealing  with  that  picture, 
Augustine  appears  to  be  most  interested  in  reconciling  "the  third  hour" 
of  Mark  with  "  the  sixth  hour  "  of  his  text,  and  in  the  precise  truth  about 
the  division  of  the  garments,  and  such-like  "vacant  chaff."  Again,  there 
is  downright  bathos — and  of  any  modern  man  we  should  say  irreverence 
—  in  his  connection  of  Eph.  iii.  i8  with  the  material  Cross.  The  cross-bar 
represents  "  the  breadth  "  and  the  upright  beam  "  the  height "  of  the  love 
of  Christ  ! 


MATERIALISM   AND   MYSTICISM  135 

could  be  no  other  than  the  Judaeo-Christian  Scriptures  and 
tradition.  Granting  this,  it  followed  that  every  part  of 
the  Scripture  dictated  by  the  Holy  Ghost  must  be  instinct 
with  divine  meaning.  And  if  there  is  anything  in  the 
sacred  writings  apparently  opposed  to  morality  or  common 
sense,  that  can  only  be  because  the  questionable  passage 
deals  with  mysteries  only  to  be  understood  through 
symbolic  interpretation.^ 

Further,  since  the  plan  of  salvation  involved  a  series  of 
prophecies  and  types  hinting  with  gradually  increasing 
plainness  at  the  ultimate  theophany,  every  devout  and 
instructed  student  of  the  Word  was  always  on  the  look-out 
for  a  significance  deeper  than  the  obvious  sense.  And 
again,  since  God  had  miraculously  intervened  to  repair  a 
breach  made  in  his  world  by  the  craft  and  subtilty  of  the 
Devil,  and  had  kept  up  that  miraculous  intervention  for 
more  than  four  thousand  years,  it  was  contrary  to  the 
analogy  of  faith  to  suppose  that  he  would  suspend  that 
miraculous  intervention  for  the  short  period  that  remained 
before  the  consummation  of  all  things.  Under  such  a 
system  of  thought,  we  can  hardly  wonder  that  even  an 
Augustine  often  lapsed  into  holy  folly. 

It  remains  to  add  to  these  considerations  the  curious 
mixture  of  materialism  and  mysticism  characteristic  of 
the  sacramental  ideas  of  Augustine,  of  his  contemporaries, 
and  of  all  his  followers.  The  water  of  baptism  was  a 
material  substance,  but  in  the  hands  of  the  priest  it 
possessed  miraculous   powers.      The  candidate  emerged 

^  See,  if  anyone  cares,  D^  Doctrina  Christiana^  Lib.  vi.,  cap.  21,  where 
Augustine  quotes  with  evident  approval  Cyprian's  edifying  reference  to 
Noah's  conduct  after  he  had  planted  a  vineyard.  It  is  true  that  Augustine 
quotes  it  in  illustration  of  a  point  in  his  teaching  on  Christian  rhetoric, 
but  the  recital  of  such  words  by  two  great  fathers  amply  justifies  the 
above. 


136  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

from  it  as  one  born  again.  All  his  sins  were  cancelled. 
The  natural  man  had  become  the  child  of  God,  and  an 
inheritor  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  It  may  be  possible, 
perhaps,  for  ingenuity  so  to  explain  Augustine's  allusions 
to  the  supreme  rite  of  the  Church,  "  holy  communion,'* 
as  to  exclude  the  metaphysical  doctrine  of  transubstantia- 
tion.  But  that  he  believed  the  real  body  and  blood  of 
Jesus  to  be  in  some  sense  present  after  consecration, 
seems  undeniable. 

Now,  such  sacramental  magic  is  utterly  incongruous 
with  the  probabilities  of  Christian  origins  as  suggested  by 
historical  criticism.  For  if  we  put  aside  the  Fourth 
Gospel  as  clearly  post-apostolic  and  ideal,  and  if  we 
confine  ourselves  to  such  epistles  and  to  such  portions  of 
the  Synoptical  Gospels  as  seem  proved  to  have  been 
circulated  in  the  infant  church  during  the  latter  part  of 
the  first  century,  we  get  the  idea  of  a  spiritualised,  semi- 
Jewish  community,  separated  from  the  traditions  of 
Israel  by  a  renunciation  of  the  Mosaic  law,  but  insisting 
on  the  consummation  of  those  traditions  in  a  Messiah 
who  had  been  crucified,  but  had  conquered  death  by 
rising  again  and  ascending  into  heaven,  whence  he  was 
shortly  to  come  down  and  establish  God's  kingdom  on 
earth.  The  preparation  of  the  Christian  for  that  re- 
appearance was  to  be  a  pure  and  loving  life,  not  according 
to  any  literal  commandment,  but  by  the  inspiration 
vouchsafed  to  faith.  To  this  pure  and  loving  life  baptism 
was  the  initial  rite,  and  the  Lord  who  was  to  come  from 
heaven  was  to  be  constantly  kept  in  mind  by  a  com- 
memorative meal  such  as  he  had  ministered  to  his  apostles 
in  the  hour  of  their  last  social  communion  with  him. 

How  did  it  come  to  pass,  then,  that  a  religion  and 
rites   so    simple   as    these   received   and   appropriated    a 


PRIMITIVE   CHRISTIANITY  137 

sacramental  magic  such  as  made  baptism  the  means  of  a 
supernatural  metamorphosis,  and  the  Lord's  Supper  a 
viaticum  to  immortal  life  ?  Opinions  differ  ;  but  there 
seems  to  be  a  weight  of  probability  on  the  side  of  those 
who  hold  that,  in  the  course  of  the  second  and  third 
centuries,  the  pagan  "  mysteries,"  whose  rites  often 
show  a  curious  analogy  to  those  of  the  Church,  had 
exerted  considerable  influence  on  the  latter.  The  whole 
Western  world  was  at  that  period  almost  morbidly 
sensitive  to  the  problems  of  human  destiny,  and  to  the 
possibility  of  redemption  from  sin  ;  while  the  longing  for 
an  assurance  of  immortality  had  never  before,  at  least 
in  Roman  society,  assumed  the  passionate  forms  that  it 
did  then.^  Now,  the  class  of  people  who  sought  initia- 
tion in  the  mysteries,  which  promised  satisfaction  to  this 
vague  longing  and  perturbation  of  spirit,  were  precisely 
such  as  to  find  at  once  a  superior  attraction  in  Christianity, 
when  once  they  were  introduced  to  its  doctrine  and 
worship.  And  as  such  proselytes  increased  in  number, 
it  was  inevitable  that  their  reminiscences,  together  with 
the  tendency  of  the  times,  should  introduce  an  element 
of  heathen  magic  into  the  sacraments  of  the  Church. 

But  this  kind  of  sacramentalism  made  impossible  the 
sort  of  isolated  supremacy  claimed  for  the  Bible  in  the 
nineteenth  century  by  the  popular  Protestant  voice,  as 
rightly  interpreted  by  the  Bible  Society.  The  fourth 
century  was  an  age  of  great  preachers,  whose  industry 
and  zeal  in  the  public  exposition  of  the  Scriptures 
familiarised  large  numbers  of  the  laity  with  Hebrew 
mythology,  Gospel  traditions,  and  apostolic  exhortations. 
To  this  extent  we  may  regard  the  popular  Bible  habit  of 

^  See  Das  antike  Mysterienwesen  in  seinem  Einfluss  auf  das  Christen- 
thum^  by  Gustav  Aurich,  1 894. 


138  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

that  age  as  more  nearly  akin  to  the  feeling  of  the  recent 
century  than  to  that  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Yet,  after  all, 
it  was  but  distantly  akin.  For  if  any  layman  dared  to 
interpret  the  Bible  for  himself,  he  was  in  danger  of  the 
fate  of  the  later  Paulicians  ;  while  the  dread  authority  of 
the  Church,  the  relics  of  paganism  incorporated  with 
Christianity,  and  the  magic  imported  into  the  sacraments, 
constituted  a  spiritual  atmosphere  in  which  a  nineteenth- 
century  believer  in  "  simple  Bible  religion "  could  not 
have  breathed. 

One  of  the  great  preachers  above  alluded  to  was  John 
Chrysostom — John  of  the  Golden  Mouth — a  presbyter  of 
Antioch  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  fourth  century,  and 
afterwards  (398)  Patriarch  of  Constantinople.  Born 
about  A.D.  347,  of  good  family,  in  Coelesyria,  he  became 
a  pupil  of  Libanius  the  rhetorician,  called  also  the  sophist, 
and  he  was  likewise  a  hearer  of  Andragathias,  a  philosopher. 
His  parents  intended  him  for  the  profession  of  law  ;  but 
his  conscience  revolted  against  the  "knavish  and  unjust"  ^ 
practices  of  the  courts,  and  he  was  seized  with  a  craving 
for  the  contemplative  life  to  which  a  fellow-student, 
Evagrius,  had  devoted  himself.  He  was,  however, 
diverted  from  this  solitude  by  the  enthusiasm  kindled  in 
him  for  the  study  of  the  Bible.^  It  is  noteworthy  that, 
for  the  better  pursuit  of  this  study,  he  seems  to  have 
considered  the  social  life  of  the  episcopal  city  of  Antioch, 

^   "  rbi/   cV    Tots   SiKttffT-qpiois    fiox^'fipof   K°^^   &5iKoy  filov,'^  Socr.,    Eccl.   Hist.^ 

vi.  3. 

2  It  is  not  clear  whether  his  parents  were  Christians  or  not.  At  the 
time  of  his  birth  the  poUtical  estabHshment  of  Christianity  was  so  recent 
that  almost  half  the  population,  or — considering  the  large  population  in 
rural  districts  {pagani) — more  than  half  adhered  to  heathen  beliefs  and 
practices,  or  were  guided  in  their  religious  profession  by  expediency. 
I  do  not  know  of  any  proof  that  Anthusa,  like  Monica,  desired  to  see 
her  son  a  priest  or  bishop. 


CHRYSOSTOM'S   PREPARATION         139 

and  assiduous  attendances  on  the  services  of  the  Church, 
to  be  more  advantageous  than  the  retirement  of  a  hermit. 
At  the  same  time  he  lived  the  life  of  an  ascetic,  a  self- 
discipline  to  which  he  adhered  throughout  his  life.  Such 
zeal  in  a  young  man  of  his  social  position  and  intellectual 
gifts  soon  attracted  attention,  and  Bishop  Zeno  of  Antioch 
ordained  him  to  the  office  of  Reader.  The  function 
seems  to  have  been  first  formally  recognised  in  the  third 
century,  and  perhaps  implies  a  need  which  could  scarcely 
be  felt  until  after  the  completion  of  the  New  Testament 
Canon.  It  was  a  humble  ecclesiastical  office,  below  that 
of  deacon  ;  but  it  must  not  be  confounded  with  that  of 
lay-reader  in  the  modern  Church.  Copies  of  the  Scrip- 
tures being  scarce,  even  in  episcopal  towns,  and  the 
number  of  illiterate  people  being  large,  it  was  important 
that  frequent  opportunities  should  be  affiDrded  of  hearing 
the  Bible  read  aloud  in  church,  apart  from  the  more 
formal  rites.  The  absence  or  obscurity  of  such  an  office 
in  the  mediaeval  Church,  apart  from  the  monasteries,  is 
an  indication  of  the  different  place  held  by  the  Bible  in 
the  two  periods. 

It  is  natural  to  conjecture  that  such  gifts  as  those  of  a 
musical  voice,  clear  enunciation,  instinctive  modulation, 
and  the  nameless  charm  which  quickens  sympathy  would 
quickly  be  recognised  in  the  reading  of  a  born  orator. 
At  any  rate  he  soon  obtained  deacon's  orders.  One  of 
the  too  frequent  wrangles  which  marred  the  work  of  the 
Church  in  those  days,  as  in  modern  times,  delayed  his 
advancement.  It  is  unnecessary  here  to  particularise  the 
quarrels  of  Meletius,  Gregory  of  Nazianzen,  and  Paulinus. 
During  the  trouble,  John  withdrew  himself  for  three  years 
into  solitude,  used  no  doubt  for  reading,  meditation, 
prayer,  and  authorship.     At   the  end  of   that  time   his 


I40  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

former  friend  and  model  succeeded  to  the  bishopric  of 
Antioch,  and  speedily  ordained  John  as  priest  or  presbyter. 
He  had  already  written  several  treatises,  but  as  the 
Preacher  of  the  Golden   Mouth  he  was  yet  unknown. 

Aptitude  and  opportunity,  those  two  essential  con- 
ditions of  any  great,  or  indeed  of  any  successful  career, 
were,  in  the  case  of  Chrysostom,  like  two  chemical 
elements  which  rush  together  with  flame  and  resounding 
report.  As  presbyter  he  was  called  upon  to  preach  ;  and 
as  soon  as  the  people  heard  him,  they  cared  for  no  one 
else.  They  flocked  in  such  numbers  that  he  was  obliged  to 
make  an  innovation  in  Church  custom.  For  the  preacher 
seems  usually  to  have  stood  on  the  altar  steps,  as  indeed 
is  often  the  practice  of  Catholic  priests  now.  But  there 
was  placed  in  the  body  of  the  church  an  "  ascent  '*  or 
"  ambo,'*  1  being  a  platform  with  steps  on  either  side. 
It  had  been  used  hitherto  for  confessions  of  faith,  for  the 
reading  of  the  Gospel  and  Epistle,  likewise  as  a  stand  for 
singers,  and  for  any  purpose  requiring  easy  command  of 
the  whole  area  of  the  church.  If  it  be  true  that  it  was 
not  used  by  preachers  in  earlier  times,  the  inference  is 
that  the  preacher  did  not  require  to  command  the  whole 
area,  inasmuch  as  it  was  not  usually  filled  with  people. 
But  the  throng,  pressing  to  hear  the  new  preacher,  was 
such,  that  if  all  were  to  see  and  hear,  he  must  occupy  a 
more  elevated  position,  and  the  ambo  served  his  purpose. 

His  removal  to  Constantinople  and  elevation  to  the 
archiepiscopal  see  was  caused  by  the  impression  his 
eloquence  made  on  a  very  unworthy  man — Eutropius,  the 
eunuch  minister  of  the  weak  Arcadius.  For,  being  on  a 
visit  to  Antioch,  Eutropius  heard  the  "  Golden  Mouth," 
as  he  began  to  be  called,  and  immediately  determined  that 
'  Said  to  be  derived  from  ava^aivw 


GREATEST   PREACHER   OF   ALL  TIME    141 

this  was  the  man  for  the  first  vacancy  on  the  archiepiscopal 
throne.  It  might  be  curious,  but  it  would  be  hopeless, 
to  speculate  on  the  motives  that  could  have  actuated  an 
unprincipled,  corrupt,  debased,  and  utterly  wicked  man 
to  desire  for  the  chief  pulpit  of  the  world  a  preacher  of 
such  intense  moral  earnestness  and  of  such  fearless  and 
incisive  utterance  as  characterised  Chrysostom.  But  he 
was  destined  to  be  within  little  more  than  a  year  the 
occasion  and  the  subject  of,  perhaps,  the  most  extra- 
ordinary display  of  pulpit  oratory  that  the  Church  has 
ever  known.  The  scene  was  dramatic.  Eutropius,  the 
victim  of  popular  revolution  and  Imperial  caprice  or 
cowardice,  had  fled  to  the  church  as  a  sanctuary,  and  was 
seen  as  the  congregation  assembled  to  be  grovelling  at  the 
altar  and  clinging  to  its  pillars.  The  Archbishop  ascended 
the  steps  of  the  ambo,  and  gazing  at  the  prostrate  figure, 
pronounced  his  text,  "  Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity." 
Then,  without  exordium,  he  made  the  application  at 
once. 

"  Where  now,"  he  cried,  "  are  the  splendid  robes  of  the 
consulate  ?  Where  are  the  flaring  torches  ?  Where  are  the 
applauding  crowd,  and  the  feasts  and  the  assemblies,  and 
the  wreaths  and  the  pavilions  ?  Where  are  the  shouts  of 
the  mob,  and  the  welcome  of  the  circus,  and  the  flatteries  of 
the  spectators  ?  All  have  vanished.  A  stormy  blast 
scattered  the  foliage  ;  it  exposed  to  us  the  naked  trunk  : 
and  even  that  is  left  shaken  from  the  roots.  For  so  mighty 
has  been  the  sweep  of  the  wind,  that  the  tree  is  all  but  torn 
up,  and  its  root  fibres  are  quivering.  Where  now  are  the 
pretended  friends  ?  Where  are  the  wine-parties  and  the 
dinners  ?  Where  is  the  swarm  of  parasites,  with  wine- 
bibbing  throughout  the  day,  and  the  fantastic  arts  of  the 
cooks,  and  the  hangers-on  of  power,  who  act  and  speak  only 
to  curry  favour  ?      All  those  things  were  a  dream,  and  when 


142  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

the  day  came  they  were  nought.  They  were  flowers  of  the 
spring,  and  when  the  spring  passed  they  withered.  They 
were  a  shadow,  and  it  fled.  They  were  smoke,  and  it 
dissolved.  They  were  bubbles,  and  they  burst.  They 
were  a  spider's  web,  and  it  was  torn  to  threads.  Where- 
fore let  us  chant  ever  again  and  again  this  spiritual 
utterance,  '  Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity.'  For  this 
utterance  ought  always  to  be  inscribed  on  our  walls,  on  our 
garments,  in  the  market-place,  in  the  home,  in  the  streets, 
on  our  doors,  in  our  entrance-halls,  and,  above  all,  in  the 
conscience  of  each  man." 

After  a  while,  turning  to  the  miserable  fugitive,  the 
unsparing  preacher,  with  an  apparent  cruelty  afterwards 
explained,  reproached  him  : — 

"  Did  I  not  tell  thee  often  and  often  that  wealth  is 
fugitive  ?  But  thou  wouldst  not  endure  us.  Did  I  not 
tell  thee  that  it  is  a  senseless  ^  servant  ?  But  thou  wouldst 
not  be  persuaded.  See  now,  how  actual  facts  have  proved 
to  experience  that  wealth  is  not  merely  fugitive,  not  merely 
senseless,  but  murderous.  For  it  is  that  wealth  which 
has  brought  thee  to  this  abject  terror.  When  thou  usedst 
often  to  complain  of  me  for  telling  thee  the  truth,  did 
I  not  tell  thee  that  I  love  thee  more  than  thy  flatterers  do  ? 
that  I,  the  reprover,  care  for  thee  more  than  those  who  fawn 
on  thee  ?  Did  I  not  also  remind  you  that  the  wounds 
(inflicted)  by  friends  are  more  faithful  than  the  obtruded 
kisses  of  enemies.^  If  thou  hadst  endured  my  wounding, 
their  kisses  would  not  have  brought  thee  to  this  death. 

"  If  I  speak  thus,  it  is  not  through  any  desire  to  trample  on 
that  prostrate   man,  but  through  the  wish  to  confirm  those 

1  ayvwuwv.  Perhaps  "  unprofitable  "  might  translate  it,  but  the  emphasis 
is  on  the  brute  stupidity  of  mere  money. 

^  Prov.  xxvii.  6.  Chrysostom  gives  the  LXX  version.  The  kisses  are 
there  called  eKowo-fo, — offered  without  being  asked. 


A  TRAGIC   SCENE  143 

who  stand  ;  not  to  inflame  the  wounds  of  the  sufferer,  do  I 
speak,  but  to  preserve  in  sound  health  those  who  are  not  yet 
hurt  J  not  to  sink  a  man  struggling  in  the  waves,  but  to 
warn  those  saiUng  with  a  fair  wind,  lest  they  too  should 
founder.  How  can  that  be  prevented  ?  Why,  by  giving 
careful  heed  to  the  mutability  of  human  affairs.  For  if  this 
man  had  been  on  his  guard  against  a  reverse,  he  would  not 
have  sustained  a  reverse.  But  though  he  would  not  profit 
by  private  influences  or  by  any  other,  surely  you,  who  plume 
yourselves  on  your  wealth,  may  profit  by  his  fate  ;  for  there 
is  nothing  in  all  things  human  that  is  more  precarious. 

"  Let  any  rich  man  enter  here  and  win  great  profit.  For 
when  he  sees  one  who  has  shaken  the  whole  world,  cast 
down  from  so  high  a  pinnacle,  now  crouching  in  fear,  more 
terrified  than  a  hare  or  a  frog,  and  fastened  to  that  pillar 
without  bands,  fixed  by  fear  instead  of  chains,  he  will  abate 
his  pretence,  he  will  drop  his  pompous  assumption,  and, 
reflecting  on  the  true  philosophy  of  things  human,  he  will 
go  away,  having  learned  by  an  object  lesson  what  the 
Scriptures  tell  him  in  words,  that  '  All  flesh  is  grass,  and  all 
the  glory  of  man  as  the  flower  of  grass.  The  grass  is 
withered  and  the  flower  is  faded.'  Or  again  :  '  As  the 
grass  they  shall  quickly  wither,  and  as  the  green  herb  they 
shall  fall  away;  because  as  smoke  so  are  his  days,'i — and 
many  such  passages.  On  the  other  hand,  the  poor  man  who 
comes  in  and  looks  upon  this  sight  will  have  no  pessimistic 
feeling  about  himself,  nor  will  he  bemoan  his  penury. 
Rather  he  will  be  pleased  with  his  poverty,  because  it  has 
been  to  him  as  a  place  of  sanctuary,  and  as  a  waveless 
harbour,  and  as  a  secure  wall  of  defence.  And,  seeing  all 
this,  if  he  hath  the  choice,  he  would  a  thousand  times  prefer 


Mt  is  pretty  certain  that  we  have  here  the  shorthand  writer's  report  of 
a  discourse  delivered  almost  extempore.  Hence  we  need  not  be  surprised 
at  the  tacking  of  Ps.  cii.  3  on  to  Ps.  xxxvii.  2.  As  to  shorthand  reports 
of  Chrysostom,  see  Socrates,  Hist  En.,  vi.  4. 


144  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

to  remain  as  he  is,  rather  than  to  possess  the  world's  wealth 
for  a  brief  space  of  time,  and  then  to  be  in  jeopardy  of  his 
life.  Seest  thou  how  the  flight  of  this  man  hither  has  been 
no  small  gain  to  rich  and  poor,  to  the  lowly  and  the  high,  to 
bond  and  free  ?  Seest  thou  how  each  several  man,  taking 
his  own  appropriate  medicine,  goes  away  from  this  spectacle 
healed  ? 

"  Ha  !  Do  I  soften  your  mood  ?  Do  I  turn  away  wrath  ? 
Do  I  quench  inhuman  passion  ?  Do  I  convert  you  to 
sympathy  ?  Truly,  I  think  so  ;  for  your  faces  show  it,  and 
the  fountains  of  your  tears.  Come  then,  since  the  rock  in 
you  has  become  deep  earth  and  soft  soil,  bring  forth  the 
fruit  of  pity  ;  let  the  plant  of  sympathy  ripen  ;  let  us  fall 
before  the  sovereign,  or  rather  let  us  beseech  the  all-pitying 
God  to  assuage  the  mood  of  the  Emperor  and  to  soften 
his  heart,  so  that  he  may  grant  us  unreservedly  this 
grace.   .   .  ." 

The  preacher  then  goes  on  to  describe  how  the 
Imperial  soldiery  had  sought  permission  to  violate  the 
sanctuary,  and  how  Arcadius  had  pleaded  with  tears 
against  the  deed.  He  evidently  thinks  the  popular 
passion  is  the  real  danger  to  the  fugitive.  Therefore, 
in  immediate  prospect  of  the  Communion,  he  uses  all 
priestly  authority  and  oratorical  art  to  ensure  the 
relenting  of   the   people. 

"  For  how  could  you  be  fit  for  absolution  if,  when  the 
injured  monarch  shows  no  vindictiveness,  you,  who  have 
suffered  nothing  like  so  much,  should  persist  in  such  wrath  ? 
Or  how,  when  this  congregation  separates,  will  you  touch 
the  mysteries,^  or  utter  that  prayer  which  we  are  commanded 
to  say,  '  Forgive  us  as  we  forgive  our  debtors,'  when  at  the 
same  time  you  are  extorting  a  penalty  from  your  debtor  ?  " 

1  /iv<rTi7p(«i'= consecrated  elements. 


THE  CHURCH  DOMINATING  THE  BIBLE    145 

In  the  result,  Eutropius  was  held  inviolable  within  the 
church  ;  but  having  left  it  in  the  hope  of  escape,  he  was 
captured,  and  after  a  brief  exile  was  recalled  and  put  to 
death.  But  Chrysostom,  in  a  sermon  preached  after  the 
attempted  escape  and  capture,  declared  that  if  he  had  re- 
mained within  the  sacred  precincts,  no  harm  could  have 
touched  him.  And  though  the  moral  earnestness  of  the 
preacher  is  indisputable,  yet  it  is  clear  that  what  he  has 
most  at  heart  is  the  inviolability  of  the  Church.^ 

This  incident  in  the  career  of  Chrysostom  has  been 
selected  for  recital  partly  because  its  dramatic  nature  gives 
a  vivid  glimpse  of  Church  life  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  and  partly  because  it  illustrates  what  the  Bible 
then  was  in  the  hands  and  on  the  lips  of  a  Churchman 
with  popular  sympathies  and  power  of  expression.  The 
gifts  and  arts  of  a  successful  preacher  are  much  the  same 
in  all  ages,  and  there  is  a  good  deal  in  Chrysostom  that 
reminds  us  of  Spurgeon  or  Ward  Beecher,  though  he  had 
undoubtedly  more  genius,  more  culture,  and  more  learn- 
ing than  either  of  these.  But  there  are  two  points  of 
difference  between  his  days  and  ours,  which  must  always 
strike  us  in  reading  him.  The  first  is  the  much  more 
limited  knowledge  of  the  Bible  possible  to  popular 
audiences  in  the  fourth  century,  and  the  second  is  the 
universal  acceptance  by  such  audiences  of  the  power  of 
the  Church  as  a  supernatural  body  privileged  to  interpret 
its  own  charter  in  the  Scriptures  and  to  influence  the 
eternal  destines  of  every  man  through  its  priests  and 
sacraments.  There  were  probably  more  copies  of  the 
Bible,  or  at  any  rate  of  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,  in  Con- 

1  The  discourse  is  somewhat  incoherent,  and  the  Benedictine  editor 
expresses  doubts  of  its  genuineness,  but  the  vindication  of  the  Church  is 
characteristic. 

10 


146  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

stantinople  than  in  any  other  city  of  the  world,  except 
Rome.  But  Chrysostom  found  it  necessary  to  exhort  his 
hearers  to  get  themselves  the  Scriptures,^  "  the  medicine 
of  the  soul "  ;  or,  at  any  rate,  if  they  cannot  compass  the 
entire  Bible,  they  ought  to  have  the  "  New  Testament, 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the  Gospels,  those  perpetual 
teachers."  It  would  be  strange  indeed  to  hear  a  popular 
preacher  in  St  PauFs  Cathedral  nowadays  urging  an 
average  audience  to  purchase  a  Bible,  or  at  any  rate  part  of 
one.  It  is  not  likely  that  any  house-painter  in  Constan- 
tinople cherished  a  familiar  Bible  on  which  he  scribbled 
independent  comments  after  the  fashion  of  the  rude 
but  fervent  Christian  whose  original  hermeneutics  were 
quoted  in  our  first  chapter.  Not  because  the  Bible  was 
less  honoured  in  the  fourth  century  than  in  the  nineteenth, 
but  it  was  honoured  in  a  different  fashion.  It  was  like 
the  Ark  of  the  Covenant,  not  to  be  touched  by  profane 
hands  ;  but,  so  far  at  least  as  its  interpretation  and  appli- 
cation was  concerned,  to  be  left  to  the  priests.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  pleasant  to  know  that  the  lively  and 
pointed  expositions  of  Chrysostom  were  probably,  at  least 
in  the  case  of  some  part  of  his  hearers,  revived  and  en- 
forced by  their  own  reading  at  home. 

The  power  of  the  Church  is  a  familiar  topic  in  Catholic 
pulpits  now,  and  such  power  as  the  Catholic  clergy  exercise 
over  the  uneducated  multitude  is  largely  owing  to   the 

1  Pifi\la.  It  is  one  of  the  earliest  uses  of  the  word  in  that  special  sense 
in  £p.  ad  Coll.  Hom..^  ix.  In  the  following  context  is  an  eloquent  com- 
mendation of  the  practice  of  private  Bible-reading.  "  Do  not  throw  the 
whole  work  on  us.  You  are  sheep  ;  yes,  but  not  unreasoning  sheep ! 
You  have  reason."  This  undoubtedly  shows  that  under  Chrysostom  the 
Church  did  not  withhold  the  Scriptures,  as  it  seems  to  have  done  in  the 
seventh  century,  according  to  the  Paulician  accusation  (see  ante^  p.  109), 
but  it  is  perfectly  consistent  with  what  is  said  above  as  to  the  impossibility 
of  independent  interpretation. 


BIBLE  SUPERSEDING  CHURCH 


147 


implicit  belief  of  the  faithful  in  the  awful  consequences 
attached  to  the  priest's  sacramental  prerogatives.  But  it 
is  questionable  whether,  even  in  a  Catholic  country,  such 
a  scene  would  be  possible  as  that  which  we  have  just 
witnessed  in  the  Church  of  St  Sophia.  For,  though  the 
pretensions  of  the  Church  to  absolve  or  to  refuse  absolu- 
tion from  damning  sin  are  maintained,  no  one  believes  in 
those  pretensions  with  such  thoroughness  as  to  accept  the 
inevitable  inference  that  the  destinies  of  eternity  must 
supersede  the  expediencies  of  time,  and  that  the  Church 
must  overrule  the  State.  Needless  to  say  that  outside 
the  Catholic  Church  the  most  sincere  and  fervent 
Christians  have  no  feelings  even  remotely  akin  to  the 
reverence  and  awe  with  which  Chrysostom's  congregation 
listened  to  his  exaltation  of  the  Church's  delegated  divine 
powers.  They  are  Bible  Christians,  even  if  they  do  not 
ursurp  the  title  as  a  sectarian  name.  Keeping  to  the 
limits  of  the  nineteenth  century,  before  the  "  New  The- 
ology "  had  become  popular,  we  may  say  that  each  wor- 
shipper in  Protestant  churches  carried  his  Bible  about  with 
him,  not  as  a  corporate,  but  as  a  personal  charter  of  re- 
demption and  eternal  life.  Between  his  soul  and  God  no 
priest  might  intervene.  Between  his  understanding  or 
conscience  and  the  Bible,  no  earthly  interpreter  had 
authority  to  intrude.  Advice,  information,  explanation 
might  be  offered  and  thankfully  received,  but  the  only 
authoritative  interpreter  recognised  by  the  pious  was  the 
same  Spirit  who  moved  holy  men  of  old  to  write  the  books. 
Such  a  relation  of  Man  to  the  Bible  was  not  only  unknown, 
but  inconceivable,  in  the  silver  age  of  the  Church. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    BIBLE    AND    PRIMITIVE    CHRISTIANITY 

The  purpose  of  this  treatise  requires  us  constantly  to 
keep  in  view  those  popular  ideas  of  the  Bible  which 
reached  their  culmination  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
Such  ideas  are  now  in  process  of  change,  a  process  which 
some  call  development,  and  others  disintegration.  But 
probably  the  interpretations  are  not  irreconcilable.  How- 
ever that  may  be,  it  is  certain  that,  according  to  the 
popular  Protestant  evangelical  theory  of  Christian  origins 
and  early  progress,  it  is  precisely  as  we  approach  the 
apostolic  age  that  the  supremacy  of  Scripture  emerges 
from  the  mists  of  later  superstition,  and  that  the  virgin 
Church  is  heard  to  anticipate  the  later  Protestant  watch- 
word, "  the  Bible,  and  the  Bible  alone."  But  this  popular 
idea  of  early  Church  life  is  scarcely  confirmed  by  a  can- 
did study  of  such  documents  as  are  left  to  us  by  the 
internecine  struggle  between  sects  for  the  preservation  of 
their  own  records  and  the  suppression  of  those  of  their 
rivals.  And  here  it  should  be  noted  that  the  losses 
suffered  in  this  struggle  for  existence  have  told  far  more 
heavily  against  heretical,  or,  as  we  might  say.  Nonconfor- 
mist   Christians,    than    against    those    who    kept    to    the 

main  stream  of  tradition.     Therefore,  if  we  find  that  the 

148 


PRIMITIVE   TRADITION  149 

records  of  the  earliest  Christian  centuries  fail  to  confirm 
the  nineteenth-century  theory  above  mentioned,  it  is  no 
answer  to  say  that  simple  Bible  religion  was  suppressed 
by  ecclesiastical  authority.  For,  to  any  unprejudiced 
judgment,  it  must  appear  with  something  approaching  to 
certainty  that  the  result  of  the  struggle  for  existence 
amongst  ideals  and  doctrines  was  that  the  immediately 
post-apostolic  conception  of  the  respective  functions  of 
the  Church  and  Bible  prevailed  and  were  handed  down 
identical  in  essence,  though  encumbered  with  many 
accretions,  to  future  generations. 

It  may  be  plausibly  said  that  Protestant  pleaders  for 
pure  Christianity  are  not  content  to  accept  the  post- 
apostolic  Church  as  a  final  court  of  appeal,  but  insist  on 
taking  the  judgment  of  the  apostles  and  even  Christ 
himself.  But  the  difficulty  in  maintaining  such  an  ulti- 
mate appeal  is  obvious.  For  what  is  commonly  taken  to 
be  that  supreme  court  is  in  fact  constituted,  and  to  a  very 
large  extent  guided  and  ruled,  by  the  post-apostolic 
Church.  Thus  you  cannot  possibly  appeal  to  St  Paul 
for  the  authority  of  the  written  Gospels,  since  in  his  day 
no  written  Gospels  existed.  Nor  can  you  appeal  to  the 
Gospels  for  the  authority  of  St  Paul,  since  he  is  not  only 
unmentioned  in  them,  but  unconceived  and  perhaps  in- 
conceivable in  the  Church  life  that  gave  them  birth.^     As 

^  The  problem  of  the  Gospels  does  not  come  within  my  range.  But  at 
any  rate  St  Paul's  exclusive  insistence  on  the  death  and  resurrection  of 
Jesus,  together  with  his  really  startling  reticence  as  to  the  life  of  the  Lord, 
betrays  a  spiritual  standpoint  indefinitely  removed  from  that  of  the  Gospel 
"  rhapsodists" — if  we  may  use  the  term.  Besides,  the  Synoptical  Gospels, 
though  certainly  unwritten  during  St  Paul's  Hfe,  except  in  possible  frag- 
ments, show  a  childlike  simplicity  and  Homeric  objectivity  suggesting  an 
earlier  tone  of  thought  than  that  of  the  Pauline  writings.  They  existed 
in  the  talk  of  the  Galilean  apostles  and  Judaic  Christians  before  they  were 
committed  to  writing.     It  is  true  that,  so  far  as  our  information  goes,  the 


ISO 


MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 


is  well  known  to  all  readers  of  even  popular  works  on  the 
Canon  of  the  New  Testament,  this  book,  so  dear  to 
Christians,  had  no  rounded  completeness  until  the  latter 
part  of  the  third  century.  Indeed,  when  Eusebius  wrote 
after  the  establishment  of  Christianity  by  Constantine, 
the  authorship  and  authority  of  the  Book  of  Revelation 
was  still  disputed.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  was 
assigned  by  some  to  Clement  of  Rome,  by  others  to 
Barnabas,  and  by  others  again  to  Apollos.  And  it  is 
scarcely  possible  that  those  who  assigned  it  to  such  non- 
apostolic  writers  can  have  regarded  it  as  authoritative  in 
the  same  sense  as  the  words  of  St  Paul.  The  Epistle  of 
James,  also,  was  openly  doubted,  as  well  as  the  second  of 
Peter  and  that  of  Jude.  Putting  aside,  therefore,  the 
Old  Testament,  there  was  even  in  the  time  of  Constantine 
no  guaranteed  volume,  or  corpus,  of  divine  revelation 
such  as  later  Christians  recognised  in  the  "  New  Testa- 
ment of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ."  There 
were  only  a  number  of  detached  sacred  books,^  embody- 
ing partly  the  traditions  of  the  Church  concerning  the 
ministry  of  Jesus,  and  partly  the  personal  utterances  of 
his  immediate  apostles. 

Now,  if  the  devoutest  appreciator  of  "simple  Bible 
teaching"  will  try  to  put  himself  in  the  place  of  the 
Christians  living  in  those  early  days,  he  must  own  that 

Gentile  ministry  of  St  Paul  began  within  ten  years  of  the  crucifixion  of 
Jesus.  But  from  the  beginning  of  his  work,  and  throughout  it,  he  lived, 
spiritually,  socially,  and  intellectually,  in  a  different  world  from  that  of  the 
Palestinian  Christians.  There  is  a  great  deal  implied  in  his  declaration, 
Gal.  i.  22,  that  he  was  "  unknown  by  face  unto  the  churches  of  Judaea 
which  were  in  Christ."  Now,  it  was  certainly  amongst  the  "  churches  of 
Judaea "  that  the  reminiscences  and  imaginations  took  shape  which  after- 
wards developed  into  the  Synoptical  Gospels.  Of  course,  these  remarks 
have  no  reference  whatever  to  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

*  KvpiaKoi  or  Oeiai  ypa4>a\. 


"SIMPLE   BIBLE"   IN   THE   FIRST   AGE  151 

they  would  inevitably  feel  the  want  of  some  direction 
and  guidance,  other  than  that  of  these  as  yet  independent 
and  unincorporated  books.^  The  private  Christian  found 
such  direction  and  guidance  in  the  corporate  opinion  of 
the  congregation  to  which  he  belonged,  and  particularly 
of  the  leaders,  the  Presbyters  or  Bishops,  two  titles  which 
from  the  very  beginning  of  the  second  century  began  to 
denote  two  distinct  orders  of  clergy.  These  leaders, 
again,  being  in  correspondence  with  other  congregations 
throughout  the  expanding  Christian  world,  were  able  to 
say  what  seemed  to  them  to  be  the  judgment  of  the 
universal  or  "  Catholic  "  Church.  Or,  if  on  any  point 
considered  important  it  appeared  that  the  leaders  of 
various  churches  were  disagreed,  the  example  recorded  in 
Acts  XV.  was  followed  and  the  official  representatives  of 
the  churches  came  together  "to  consider  of  this  matter." 
In  this  way  there  grew  up,  even  while  the  New 
Testament  was  being  formed,  that  commanding  authority 
of  the  Church,  apart  from  which  the  story  of  Christianity 
cannot  be  understood.  Indeed,  the  want  of  a  sufficient 
appreciation  of  this  great  prerogative  of  the  Church  has 
marred  the  Protestant  conception  of  historic  Christianity 
by  reducing  it  to  an  estimate  of  more  or  less  Bible  in  the 
various  epochs,  whereas  it  is  perfectly  certain  that 
Church  authority  is  considerably  older  than  that  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  it  can  scarcely  be  too  often  repeated 

^  If  it  should  occur  to  the  reader  that  the  Sinaitic  Codex  makes  a 
volume  of  all  the  New  Testament  books,  he  may  be  reminded  that  it 
contains  also  the  Epistle  of  Barnabas,  and  nearly  the  whole  Shepherd 
of  Hernias^  without  the  slightest  indication  that  these  books  belong  to  a 
different  class.  Similarly,  the  Alexandrian  Codex  preserves  the  Epistles 
of  the  Roman  Clement.  The  Vatican  Codex  is  defective— all  after 
Heb.  ix.  14  being  lost.  It  should  be  noted  also  that  the  differences  in 
the  order  of  books  within  these  ancient  codices  suggest  a  still  tentative 
arrangement  of  scattered  MSS. 


152  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

that  the  former  determined  what  the  latter  should  be. 
Nor  can  any  difficulty  be  caused  if  we  regard  both  the 
one  authority  and  the  other  as  purely  natural  forms  of 
moral  influence,  explicable  by  their  origins  and  by  the 
circumstances  and  course  of  their  evolution.  Some  of  the 
New  Testament  books,  indeed,  were  not  the  voice  of  the 
congregation,  but  of  individual  genius.  It  was  not  always 
easy  to  accommodate  these  latter  to  the  official  theology 
that  might  dominate  the  Church  at  particular  times,  but 
the  Church  that  guaranteed  the  New  Testament  inevitably 
claimed  the  right  to  interpret,  and  thus  ensured  harmony 
within  the  fold.  To  the  outsider,  however,  the  more 
important  question  is  what  has  been  the  service  or  the 
dis-service  rendered  by  each  form  of  authority  to  the 
progress  of  man. 

Perhaps  the  first  three  centuries  of  the  Christian  era 
give  as  good  an  opportunity  as  any  other  period  for  study- 
ing that  question.  True,  indeed,  the  religious  history  is 
in  many  parts  obscure.  But  the  salient  facts  of  a  quiet 
but  resistless  expansion  of  the  Church,  and  of  the  evolution 
of  the  New  Testament  Canon,  are  clear  enough  ;  and  even 
the  imperfections  of  ecclesiastical  historians  cannot  deprive 
those  facts  of  significance.  In  the  age  of  Augustine  and 
Chrysostom,  secular  power  had  already  been  captured  by 
the  Church.  The  only  miracle  worthy  of  religion,  the 
victory  of  unarmed  love  and  truth  over  unresisted  brute 
force,  had  little  or  no  chance  of  repetition  in  a  church 
enriched  and  adorned  by  the  State.  Even  before  the 
permanent  establishment  of  Christianity,  the  Church  had 
already  proved  by  experience  that  prosperity  and  ease  may 
be  worse  than  persecution.  At  any  rate,  Eusebius, 
writing  of  his  own  earliest  years,  declares  that  a  long 
period  of  toleration  had  produced  negligence  and  sloth 


THE    MARTYR   OF  NICOMEDIA         153 

amongst  the  Christians,  and  that  this  relaxation  of  spiritual 
energy  had  given  occasion  to  unbrotherly  strife. 

Yet  no  sooner  was  the  anti-Christian  edict  of  Diocletian 
posted  up  in  Nicomedia,  than  a  Christian  was  found  bold 
enough  to  tear  the  charta  sacra  down,  rend  it  in  pieces, 
and  trample  it  under  foot.  The  exact  terms  of  the  edict 
are  nowhere  given  ;  but  the  words  of  Eusebius  suggest 
that  it  directed  the  destruction  of  the  churches  recently 
erected,  and  the  burning  of  all  writings  that  the  Christians 
counted  sacred.  What,  then,  was  the  impulse  which 
prompted  the  unnamed  martyr  of  Nicomedia  to  tear  down 
the  Imperial  decree  }  Was  it  corporate  spirit  or  zeal  for 
the  Scriptures  }  No  doubt  it  was  both.  But  in  what 
proportion  were  the  motives  mingled  }  On  the  whole, 
such  records  as  have  been  preserved,  and  a  comparison  of 
the  story  of  Reformation  martyrs  with  those  of  the  early 
Church,  would  certainly  suggest  that  the  heroism  of  the 
nameless  martyr  of  Nicomedia  and  of  the  unconquerable 
hosts  who  followed  him,  was  inspired  more  by  the  Church 
than  by  the  Bible.  The  selection  of  the  Bishops  and 
Presbyters  for  specially  vindictive  persecution  shows  that 
the  powers  of  this  world  recognised  the  Society  and  its 
traditions  as  the  stronghold  and  fountain-head  of  what 
they  considered  a  "  pernicious  superstition."  And  if  they 
included  the  sacred  writings  in  their  promiscuous  condem- 
nation, it  could  hardly  be  because  they  knew  what  these 
sacred  writings  were,  but  simply  because,  according  to 
common  fame,  those  writings  gave  to  the  life  of  the 
Church  a  continuity  which  it  was  the  business  of  persecu- 
tion to  destroy. 

As  it  is  not  necessary  to  follow  up  through  the  mists  of 
Christian  origins  this  criticism  of  the  comparative  influ- 
ence of  the  Bible  and  the  Church  in  the  inspiration  of 


154  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

martyrs,  we  may  here  call  up  at  once  the  Lyons  martyrs, 
whose  pathetic  story  is  told  in  an  epistle  from  the  church 
of  that  city,  quoted  by  Eusebius.  Of  these  martyrs  we 
learn  that  amidst  tortures  the  endurance  of  which  would, 
to  our  self-indulgent  age,  seem  incredible,  were  it  not 
paralleled  and  confirmed  by  many  other  instances  within 
and  also  without  Christianity,  a  poor  weak  girl,  Blandina, 
would  reiterate  again  and  again,  "  I  am  a  Christian,  and 
amongst  us  nothing  base  is  allowed."  The  steadfast 
declaration  was,  no  doubt,  directly  occasioned  by  the 
infamous  accusations  of  incest  and  ritual  murder  made 
by  stupid  bigotry  against  the  Church.  Still,  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  corporate  spirit  is  apparent,  and  when  it  is 
remembered  how  little  opportunity  poor  Blandina  could 
have  had  of  studying  the  Scriptures,  we  may  reasonably 
assume  that  her  piteous  cry  told  more  of  the  power  of  the 
Church  than  of  the  Bible. 

If  we  turn  to  the  martyrology  of  Foxe,  we  find  that 
in  his  accounts  of  Reformation  martyrs  quotations  of 
Scripture  are  frequent,  and  minister  greatly  to  the  con- 
solation of  the  sufferers.  But  in  the  original  accounts  of 
primitive  martyrs  of  the  Church  this  is  not  the  case. 
On  the  contrary,  the  words  of  the  Bible  are  comparatively 
infrequent  on  their  lips.  But  instead,  we  have  constant 
testimony  of  their  loyalty  to  Christ  as  king  of  kings,  and 
of  their  contempt  for  false  gods.  No  doubt  the  position 
of  Reformation  martyrs  was  very  different  from  that  of 
primitive  martyrs,  inasmuch  as  the  latter  were  witnesses 
for  the  Church,  and  the  former  were  witnesses  against 
it.  And,  naturally,  the  men  who  appealed  from  the 
Church  to  the  Bible  must  needs  make  much  of  the  latter. 
Such  a  comment,  however,  only  confirms  what  has  just 
been  said  as  to  the  comparative  prominences  of  Church 


MODERN    MARTYRS  155 

and  Bible  in  ancient  and  modern  times.  The  question 
as  to  the  religious  propriety  of  either  attitude  does  not 
lie  within  our  purview  ;  though  every  reader  may  form 
his  own  opinion  from  the  facts  of  which  we  give  a 
summary.  It  is  sufficient  here  to  note  that  during 
the  struggles  of  the  first  three  centuries  the  Church 
and  its  Founder  are  prominent,  and  the  Bible  in 
reserve. 

This  view  of  the  relative  positions  of  Church  and  Bible 
in  those  times  is  confirmed  by  many  incidents  of  Church 
history,  from  which  I  select  one  or  two,  though  many 
more  might  be  given  did  space  allow.  If  the  Bible,  and, 
in  particular,  the  New  Testament,  had  been  the  main 
subject  of  interest  to  the  faithful  ;  if,  in  fact,  it  had  been 
to  the  pre-Constantinian  Church  what  it  certainly  was  to 
Protestant  communities  and  families  in  the  nineteenth 
century, — it  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  so  many  biblical 
treatises  or  commentaries  on  the  sacred  text  should  have 
been  lost.  That  the  holy  books  themselves  should  be 
carefully  preserved,  guarded  by  appointed  Church  officers 
and  concealed  in  times  of  persecution,  was  a  consequence 
of  their  being  regarded  as  the  voice  of  the  very  earliest 
Church,  uttered  by  or  directly  reported  from  the  lips  of 
the  apostles  and  their  Lord.  But  this  treasure  was  in 
the  charge  of  the  Church,  and  the  point  of  interest  for 
Christians  was  not  so  much  what  individual  Presbyters 
or  Bishops  thought  of  the  sacred  text,  but  rather  what 
the  Church  said  of  it. 

Take  the  case  of  Origen,  one  of  the  most  interesting 
of  all  Church  teachers,  comparable  in  power  of  intellect 
to  Augustine,  and  much  wider  in  his  sympathies.  After 
the  martyrdom  of  his  father  in  Alexandria,  Origen,  though 
scarcely  past  boyhood,  began  to  earn  his  living  as  a  teacher 


156  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

or  lecturer  in  Greek  literature.  But  he  was  much  more 
devoted  to  the  unclassical  Scriptures.  And  as  the  violence 
of  persecution  had  driven  away  the  catechists,  he  boldly 
took  up  the  work  and  speedily  became  a  renowned  and 
beloved  instructor  of  catechumens.  It  was  natural  that 
such  a  man,  when  he  afterwards  devoted  himself  to  a  life 
of  literary  labour  in  the  interests  of  religion,  should  have 
much  to  say  about  the  books  of  the  New  Testament. 
But  these  comments  have  been  preserved  for  the  most 
part  only  in  unsatisfactory  fragments,  while  his  con- 
troversial work  against  Celsus,  an  assailant  of  Christianity 
in  the  second  century,  has  been  preserved  entire. 

Another  point  to  be  noted  is  the  preference  of  early 
Christian  controversialists  for  the  appeal  to  tradition 
rather  than  to  the  books  of  the  New  Testament.  Not 
that  the  latter,  so  far  as  they  were  known  and  agreed 
upon,  were  ever  slighted.^  But  such  appeals  to  them  as 
are  scattered  through  the  records  of  earliest  controversy 
suggest  an  entirely  different  attitude  from  that  of  the 
modern  Protestant,  for  whom  nothing  avails  but  reference 
by  "  chapter  and  verse  "  to  the  sole  divine  authority  on 
earth,  that  of  the  Bible.  Indeed,  those  ancient  references 
to  New  Testament  books  appear  not  so  much  intended 
to  invoke  any  written  authority,  as  to  recall  the  most 
ancient  voice  of  the  Church  uttered  at  the  very  beginnings 
of  tradition.  For  instance,  Irenaeus,  as  quoted  by 
Eusebius,    wrote    a    letter    to    Victor,   the  contemporary 

^  E.g.^  Polycrates  fortifies  his  own  authority  by  a  boast  of  "  having 
studied  the  whole  of  the  sacred  Scriptures."  The  latter,  of  course, 
included  the  Old  Testament,  which  could  have  no  direct  bearing  on  the 
Easter  controversy.  But  the  only  text  he  adduces  is,  "  We  ought  to  obey 
God  rather  than  man " ;  and  the  authority  he  adduces  as  to  Easter 
observance  is  the  practice  of  his  predecessors  and  Church  tradition 
{Eus.y  v.,  chap.  xxiv.). 


THE   EASTER   CONTROVERSY  157 

Bishop  of  Rome,  pleading  for  tolerance  of  conscientious 
differences  of  practice  in  the  observance  of  Easter.  What, 
then,  is  his  chief  argument  ?  Not  any  quotation  of  St 
Paul's  prose  lyric  on  charity,  nor  yet  any  reference  to 
that  apostle's  almost  contemptuous  indifference  to  the 
observance  of  days,  but  simply  to  the  practice  of  departed 
saints.  And  he  evidently  regards  as  conclusive  the 
testimony  of  Polycarp,  who,  when  on  a  visit  to  Anicetus 
of  Rome  (circ.  a.d.  157),  could  not  be  persuaded  to  con- 
form to  the  Roman  and  Western  observance,  "  because 
he  had  always  kept  the  day  with  John  the  disciple  of  our 
Lord,  and  the  rest  of  the  apostles  with  whom  he  had  been 
associated." 

Be  it  remembered  that  the  question  in  dispute  con- 
cerned the  proper  day  for  terminating  the  fast  preceding 
the  chief  observance  of  the  year.^  According  to  Polycarp, 
then,  John,  "  the  disciple  of  the  Lord,"  and  after 
Polycarp's  time  the  reputed  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
ended  his  fast  on  the  14th  of  Nisan,  in  accordance  with 
Jewish  custom.  Now,  was  the  meal  with  which  he  ended 
the  fast  a  Christianised  form  of  the  Passover  ?  It  has 
often  been  pointed  out,  as  a  very  significant  circumstance, 
that  Irenaeus  makes  no  mention  of  any  reference  by 
Polycarp  to  the  Fourth  Gospel  on  this  point.  The  most 
rational  explanation  open  to  believers  in  the  Johannine 
authorship  would  be  that  the  narrative  was  unsuitable 
to  his  purpose  because  it  does  not  refer  to  a  Passover 
supper  at  all,  but  only  to  a  "  last  supper,"  taken  by  the 

^  The  churches  of  Asia  Minor  ended  their  fast  on  the  date  of  the 
Jewish  Passover — 14th  Nisan — whatever  day  of  the  week  it  might  be  ; 
while  the  Western  churches,  and  such  Palestinian  or  Syrian  churches  as 
had,  amid  the  vicissitudes  of  that  disturbed  region,  lost  their  Jewish 
traditions,  fasted  on  until  the  First  Day  or  "Lord's  Day,"  which  they 
regarded  as  the  anniversary  of  the  Resurrection. 


158  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

special  authority  of  Jesus  himself  on  the  13th  of  Nisan,^ 
and  not  on  the  14th  at  all.  Still,  it  remains  an  insuperable 
objection  to  the  hypothesis  of  Polycarp^s  recognition  of  a 
Johannine  Gospel  that  he  should  not  have  referred  to  it 
at  all  on  such  a  point  as  this,  even  if  he  had  been  obliged 
to  explain  and  account  for  its  difference  from  the  other 
Gospels.  But,  further,  Polycarp  is  represented  as  justifying 
his  own  practice,  not  only  by  that  of  John,  but  by  that  of 
"  the  apostles  with  whom  he  had  been  associated."  The 
point  I  wish  to  make  is  not  invalidated  by  the  extreme 
improbability,  amounting  almost  to  impossibility,  of  his 
having  been  "  associated  "  with  any  original  "  apostles  "  ; 
for  it  is  the  ecclesiastical  practice  of  the  second  century 
that  I  have  in  view,  and  not  the  accuracy  of  either  Irenaeus 
or  Polycarp. 

What  would  be  the  method  of  any  modern  contro- 
versialist, supposing  him  to  wish  to  prove,  as  Polycarp 
did,  that  the  Church  fast  ought  to  be  ended  on  the  14th 
of  Nisan  at  evening,  and  not  on  the  artificially^  calculated 
resurrection  day  in  the  morning  ?  He  would  undoubtedly 
appeal,  not  to  tradition,  but  to  Scripture.  And  though 
the  references  at  his  service  would  only  be  at  best  indirect 
and  vague,  he  would  think  them  much  more  important 
and  decisive  than  any  tradition  of  the  Fathers.  He 
would  probably  quote  the  words  of  St  Paul  in  i  Cor. 
V.  7,  8  :  "For  also  Christ  our  passover  is  sacrificed:^ 
therefore  let  us  keep  the  feast,"  etc.     And  the  argument, 

^  The  day,  of  course,  began  at  sunset. 

2  Easter  Sunday  is  not  properly  the  "anniversary"  of  any  event, 
historical  or  mythical,  because  its  coincidence  with  any  possible  recurrent 
day  of  the  year  is  made  impossible  by  the  necessity  for  keeping  to  the 
first  day  of  the  week.  It  is  an  artificial  accommodation  for  the  sake 
of  ritual. 

3  "  For  us,"  wirep  ry/A«i/,  is  not  found  in  x  or  B. 


EARLY  AND  LATE  CHRISTIAN  FEELING   159 

according  to  the  analogy  of  such  logomachies,  would  be 
that  "  let  us  keep  the  feast "  means  the  cessation  of  the 
fast  on  the  day  which  "  Christ  our  passover  is  sacrificed." 
Again,  he  might  refer  to  the  anxious  remonstrance  of 
James,  the  President  or  Bishop  of  the  brethren  in 
Jerusalem,  with  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  as  recorded 
in  Acts  xxi.  20,  etc.  It  is  made  there  perfectly  clear  that, 
with  the  approval  of  the  elders,  the  Jerusalem  Christians 
were  "  zealous  of  the  law "  and  "  walked  after  the 
customs."  But,  if  so,  they  must  have  "  kept  the  feast " 
on  the  14th  of  Nisan,  and  could  not  possibly  have 
observed  any  ecclesiastical  fast  which  was  prolonged  till 
the  supposed  Resurrection  morning. 

Remembering,  then,  that  the  point  of  difference  between 
Polycarp  and  the  Roman  pastor  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  date  of  the  Resurrection^  but  was  concerned,  so  far 
as  we  are  told,  only  with  the  proper  time  for  ending  a 
Church  fast,  we  may  be  confident  that  if,  in  the  opinion 
of  Polycarp,  the  then  existing  fragments  of  the  New 
Testament  had  possessed  conclusive  authority,  he  would 
have  anticipated  Protestant  methods  of  controversy  by 
citing  such  passages  as  the  above  in  the  Acts  and  Epistles, 
which  were  in  all  probability  at  his  command.  The  fact 
or  tradition  that  he  did  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  only 
appealed  to  the  customs  observed  in  his  youth  under  the 
guidance  of  elders  with  the  ambiguous  title  of  "  disciple  " 
or  "  apostle,"  is  a  striking  and,  indeed,  startling  illustration 
of  the  difference  of  the  position  held  by  New  Testament 
Scripture,  even  among  Christians,  in  the  second  century 
as  contrasted  with  the  nineteenth. 


^  The  proper  time  for  celebrating  the  Resurrection  was,  of  course, 
involved ;  but  that  is  a  very  different  point  from  the  real  anniversary  of 
Resurrection. 


i6o  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

There  is  no  need  to  carry  the  case  further,^  for  it  is 
sufficiently  obvious  that  during  the  second  century  and 
even  the  third — if  we  may  take  Eusebius  as  representing 
the  Christian  opinion  of  his  early  days  —  the  New 
Testament  was  "  in  the  making."  And,  so  far  as  our 
information  goes,  the  Paulicians,  some  three  centuries  after 
Eusebius,  were  the  very  first  Christians  to  set  up  the 
New  Testament,  or  at  least  the  parts  of  it  known  to 
them,  as  independent  of  and  superior  to  the  Church  in 
religious  authority.  Nor  does  the  fact  that  they  were  in- 
consistent, and  often  in  practice  far  below  their  theory,  at 
all  invalidate  their  claim  to  be  the  first  Christian  assertors 
of  the  superiority  of  the  written  Word  to  tradition. 

It  remains  only  to  say  a  word  on  the  strange  influence 
exerted  by  the  Old  Testament  over  the  beginnings  of 
Christianity — strange,  because  that  influence  was  made 
possible  only  by  rabbinical  and  popular  misinterpreta- 
tions of  the  venerable  texts,  misinterpretations  which 
would  have  been  as  incomprehensible  to  Hebrew  law- 
givers, prophets,  and  psalmists  as  would  have  been  the 
"  homoousion "  of  the  fourth  century,  or  the  claims  of 
Rome  to  spiritual  supremacy  over  Zion.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  first  generations  of  Christians  regarded 
the  Old  Testament  with  an  awe  and  an  absolute  submis- 


^  The  crucial  case  of  the  quotations  by  Justin  Martyr,  from  what  he 
called  the  memoranda  or  memoirs  {aTTotxvnfiov^nara)  of  the  apostles,  has 
been  abundantly  discussed,  and  it  is  common  to  suppose  that  everyone 
brings  away  from  the  study  thereof  the  impressions  with  which  he 
approached  it.  That,  however,  was  not  my  own  experience.  Strongly 
disposed  as  I  was  long  years  ago  to  find  in  Justin's  references  a  knowledge 
of  our  present  Gospels,  careful  reading  and  comparison  forced  me  at  last 
to  own  that  such  a  view  is  untenable.  Whatever  he  had  before  him,  the 
apostolic  "  memoranda  "  were  not  our  Gospels,  though,  of  course,  generally 
coinciding  with  the  traditions  they  give.  A  discussion  would  be  out  of 
place  in  a  work  like  this. 


MEN   OF   ETERNITY  i6i 

sion  to  which  no  writings  of  their  own  teachers  could  then 
make  any  claim.  Yet  on  this  general  acknowledgment 
two  reservations  must  be  made,  the  first  concerning  the 
two  makers  of  Christianity,  Jesus  and  Paul,  the  other 
concerning  the  elasticity  of  interpretation  allowed  to 
themselves  by  Christians,  and  the  consequent  unreality 
of  their  professed  submission. 

Let  us,  then,  consider  the  exceptional  attitude  assumed 
toward  the  Old  Testament  by  the  original  Founder  of 
the  Church  himself,  and  also  by  the  man  who  must  be 
recognised  as  the  second  founder,  without  whom,  indeed, 
it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  Christianity  could  have 
survived  the  ruin  of  Jerusalem.  Jesus  himself  was,  as 
has  often  been  reiterated,  a  man  of  his  time^  as  well  as  a 
man  of  eternity  ;  ^  and  he  apparently  shared,  within  limits, 

^  To  prevent  misunderstanding,  it  should  be  said  that  he  was  not  the 
only  man  of  eternity,  though,  indeed,  there  have  been  very  few.  For 
myself,  I  would  hardly  class  St  Paul  among  them,  much  as  I  admire  him. 
His  work  was  one  of  adaptation  rather  than  of  creation,  and  his  adaptation 
was  of  a  conventional,  conditional,  and  temporary  character — even  though 
it  lasted  for  centuries.  But  it  is  now  becoming  untenable.  His  doctrines 
of  the  Fall,  of  the  Second  Coming,  of  bodily  resurrection,  of  the  Atone- 
ment, and  many  others,  are  felt  by  an  increasing  number  to  be  mere 
"  aberglaube."  But  the  teaching  of  Jesus  concerning  a  divine  kingdom 
to  be  established  by  natural  moral  progress  (Mark  iv.  26,  etc. ;  Luke  xvii. 
20,  etc.),  his  disparagement  of  miracle  as  compared  with  moral  evidence 
(Matt.  xvi.  2,  etc.),  his  superiority  to  Sabbath  superstition  (Mark  iii.  i,  etc. 
etc.),  and  his  teaching  of  the  divine  relationship  of  man,  illustrate,  and 
only  illustrate,  what  I  understand  by  a  "  man  of  eternity."  The  incredible 
theological  and  teleological  discourses  which  contradict  such  teaching,  are 
too  obviously  lifted  bodily,  by  second  or  third  generation  Christians,  from 
Jewish  apocalypses.  A  man  is  a  "man  of  eternity"  when  he  reveals  in  us 
some  universal  truth,  or  germ  of  universal  truth,  which  does  not  die  with 
the  change  of  times,  but  only  reaches  higher  expression  thereby.  There 
have  been  very  few  such  men.  Buddha  was  one.  I  know  httle  about  Con- 
fucius, but  I  suspect  he  was  another.  The  fragments  of  Xenophanes  would 
seem  to  justify  his  inclusion,  and  the  next  century  will  certainly  include 
Spinoza  ;  but  the  names  are  only  illustrative,  and  every  one  will  form  his 
list  according  to  the  impression  of  recorded  utterances  on  his  own  soul. 

II 


i62  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

the  awe  with  which  the  Jews  regarded  the  Old  Testament. 
But  it  was  only  within  limits  ;  for  no  one  who  regarded 
the  written  Word  as  unchallengeably  supreme  could 
possibly  have  spoken  those  passages  in  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  which  contrasted  the  ancient  law  of  the  letter 
with  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  then  struggling  for 
utterance.  "  Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said  to  them  of 
old  time.  .  .  .  But  I  say  unto  you.  .  .  ."  The  first  of 
these  contrasts  deals  with  the  sixth  commandment,  on 
which  Jesus  puts  an  entirely  new  and  unheard-of  inter- 
pretation ;  for  he  declares  that  what  the  eternal  law 
behind  the  letter  condemns  is  not  merely  homicide  or 
violence,  but  unjustifiable  anger  and  opprobrious  language. 
To  say  that  this  only  brings  out  the  spirit  of  the  com- 
mandment is  surely  to  trifle  with  words.  It  proclaims 
a  deeper  morality,  and  in  doing  so  it  supersedes  the  old 
law.  The  second  contrast,  dealing  with  the  seventh 
commandment,  is  not  so  violent.  Still,  the  analogy  of 
Scripture,  and  the  Latin  word  adopted  in  our  translation 
to  express  the  forbidden  crime,  both  suggest  that  the 
original  prohibition  extended  only  to  intercourse  with 
married  women.^  But  Jesus  not  only  enlarges  the  scope 
of  the  prohibition  by  extending  it  to  all  women,  he  again 
unveils  an  eternal  law  superseding  the  letter  and  con- 
demning even  illicit  impulse.  It  is,  of  course,  true  that 
"  fornication  and  all  other  deadly  sins  "  of  the  kind  were 
condemned  in  various  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  but 

^  "Proprice  adulterium  in  nupta  committitur "  (Papucian,  quoted  by 
Faceiolati).  "Adulterium  est  cum  aliena  uxore  coire"  (Quintilian,  quoted 
as  above).  The  New  English  Dictionary  allows  a  very  early  extension 
of  the  meaning  of  the  English  derivative,  but  Gesenius  gives  no  case 
in  which  the  corresponding  Hebrew  word  means  anything  else.  The 
spiritual  applications  of  it  scarcely  count ;  but  they  undoubtedly  refer  to 
breaches  of  a  spiritual  marriage. 


JESUS   SUPERSEDES   THE    MOSAIC   LAW    163 

to  quote  the  seventh  commandment  as  an  injunction 
addressed  "  to  them  of  old  time,'*  and  to  expand  it  into  a 
larger  moral  rule,  was  almost  as  daring  an  utterance  as 
that  of  Jeremiah,  who  declared  that  Jahweh  had  given  no 
commandment  to  Israel  concerning  burnt-ofFerings  and 
sacrifices,  but  had  only  required  obedience.^  One  more 
contrast  only  need  be  mentioned  here,  between  the  "  law 
of  the  spirit  of  life  "  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and 
"  the  law  of  a  carnal  commandment  as  honoured  by  the 
Jews."  The  practice  of  confirming  promises  or  covenants 
by  a  formal  and  solemn  oath  was  not  only  permitted  and 
even  in  some  cases  enjoined  by  the  Old  Testament,^  but 
it  was  sanctioned  by  the  alleged  example  of  Jahweh  him- 
self, who  is  often  described  as  confirming  promises,  threats, 
or  covenants  by  a  formal  oath,^  Nor  were  the  more 
ancient  recorders  of  Hebrew  myths  at  all  troubled  as  the 
writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  was,  by  the  difficulty 
that  an  oath  should  be  an  appeal  to  a  greater  than  the 
oath-taker.  Thus,  for  instance,  in  the  original  story  in 
Gen.  XV.  of  the  divine  oath  mentioned  in  the  song  of 
Zechariah  (Luke  i.  73),  it  is  related  simply  how  the 
consecrated  formulas  presumably  used  for  solemn  oaths 
in  those  barbarous  times  were  observed  in  Abram's  vision 
by  the  "  smoking  furnace  and  the  burning  lamp  "  which 
symbolised  Jahweh's  presence.  Yet,  in  face  of  these  scrip- 
tural precedents  alleging  the  authority  of  Jahweh  himself 
for  the  custom  of  confirming  statements  by  an  oath,  Jesus 
pronounces  the  sweeping  prohibition  :  "  But  I  say  unto 
you,  swear  not  at  all."  And  the  reason  given  is  as  original 
as  the  disregard  of  Scripture  is  daring  :  "  Let  your  com- 

1  Jer.  vii.  21-24. 

2  E.g.  Gen.  xxiv.  3,  1.  25  ;  Numb.  v.  19,  etc.  etc. 

2  See  Ps.  cv.  9 ;  xcv.  11,  etc.  etc.  ;  and  cf.  Ep.  to  Heb.  vi.  13-18. 


1 64  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

municatlon  be  Yea,  yea  ;  Nay,  nay  ;  for  whatsoever  is 
more  than  these  cometh  of  evil."  The  last  words  have 
been  confirmed  by  the  experience  of  nigh  two  thousand 
years  since  then,  but  even  yet  "  the  law  of  a  carnal 
commandment "  deprives  them  of  the  appreciation  they 
deserve. 

The  simplicity  which  regards  this  daring  spiritualisation 
of  Mosaic  law,  including  the  Ten  Commandments,  as  a 
personal  assumption  of  divine  authority,  does,  I  suppose, 
still  survive.  But  it  is  an  anachronism,  belonging  to  a  de- 
parted age,  to  a  time  when  it  never  occurred  to  such  inter- 
preters to  ask  how  the  bystanders  who  heard  this  awful  claim 
could  afterwards  treat  the  young  Rabbi  familiarly  as  one  of 
themselves,  "  the  carpenter,  whose  father  and  mother  they 
knew."  The  divine  authority  was  in  the  truth  uttered, 
and  not  in  the  speaker.  The  phrase,  "  I  say  unto  you," 
served  the  purpose  of  giving  rhetorical  emphasis  to  the 
contrast  between  the  ancient  and  the  new  theology.  Many 
a  modern  orator,  inspired  with  an  enthusiasm  for  social 
reform,  exclaims,  "  I  tell  you  this,"  "  1  tell  you  that,"  or 
"  It  has  always  been  said  that  land  is  property,  but  I  say 
it  can  only  of  right  belong  to  the  whole  people."  But  it 
would  surely  be  foolish  hypercriticism  to  impute  to  such 
a  speaker  the  arrogant  pretence  of  being  a  supreme  law- 
giver. It  is  only  his  rhetorical  way  of  enforcing  a  truth 
that  he  vividly  feels.  And  if  anyone  thinks  that  such  a 
comparison  derogates  from  the  dignity  of  the  Great 
Teacher,  let  me  remind  such  an  one  of  what  is  implied  in 
the  record  that  the  "  common  people  heard  him  gladly." 
They  heard  him  gladly  not  because  they  thought  he 
claimed  to  be  God — for  even  his  most  intimate  followers 
did  not  at  that  time  dream  of  such  a  claim  ;  but  the 
common  people  heard  him    gladly    because    he    touched 


CONTRAST   OF   JESUS   AND   PAUL      165 

their  hearts,  and  for  this  an  inartificial  and  unassuming 
rhetoric  was  indispensable.  It  is,  therefore,  no  disparage- 
ment of  Jesus  to  compare  the  directness  and  boldness  of 
his  language  to  the  forms  of  speech  employed  by  the  best 
and  purest  social  reformers  of  our  own  day.  And  if  so, 
we  may  also  be  justified  in  saying  that  the  freedom  used 
by  Jesus  as  a  popular  teacher  in  dealing  with  the  letter 
of  the  Old  Testament  was  an  anticipation,  as  it  has 
become  an  inspiration,  of  the  similar  freedom  asserted 
by  some  of  his  most  earnest  followers  in  modern 
times. 

The  freedom  of  St  Paul  in  dealing  with  the  Old 
Testament  was  not  nearly  so  daring  as  that  of  his  Master. 
For  while  Jesus  expressly  superseded  what  had  been  "  said 
to  them  of  old  time,"  and,  in  the  case  of  the  Sabbath,  con- 
tradicted it  both  by  word  and  deed,  his  apostle  was  content 
with  the  humbler  method  of  mystical  misinterpretation.^ 
St  Paul  appears  to  have  held  to  the  last  that  the  law  was 
"  holy,  just,  and  good."  To  him  every  syllable  and  letter 
of  it,  as  well  as  of  the  Psalms  and  Prophets,  was  something 
divine  and  awful.  But  by  his  methods  of  interpretation — 
learned,  I  suppose,  in  Rabbinical  schools — he  could  make 
the  sacred  words  mean  anything  necessary  to  his  argument. 
Thus,  instead  of  the  changeless  institutes  of  divine  justice 
recognised  in  the  Pentateuch  by  the  orthodox  Jew,  St 
Paul  saw  only  a  "  paedagogue  "  ^  to  lead  immature  souls  to 
the  school  of  Christ.     And  to  his  mind  this  was  made 


Mt  is  true  that  St  Paul  seems  very  bold  in  forbidding  his  Gentile 
converts  to  submit  to  circumcision,  or  to  observe  times  and  seasons,  or 
holy  days  such  as  the  Sabbath.  But,  as  is  argued  further  on,  this  was 
not  a  supersession  of  the  law  as  in  the  case  of  Jesus  ;  it  was  justified  by 
an  ingenious  method  of  explaining  it  away. 

2  The  psedagogue,  of  course,  was  not  a  schoolmaster  but  a  child-leader, 
who  guarded  the  boy  on  the  way  to  school. 


1 66  MAN    AND   THE   BIBLE 

perfectly  clear  by  the  fact  that  Moses,  in  recounting  the 
story  of  the  divine  covenant  with  Abraham,  used  the 
singular  number  (seed)  and  not  the  plural  (seeds).^  The 
argument  was  that  this  promise  to  Abraham's  "  seed  " 
after  him  could  not  be  applied  promiscuously  to  all  carnal 
offspring,  which  would  have  been  "  seeds,"  but  must 
necessarily  have  had  in  view  the  one  supreme  "  seed," 
that  is,  the  Messiah.  And  the  Messiah  being,  as  St  Paul 
had  come  to  think,  a  spiritual  saviour,  brings  into  the 
Abrahamic  covenant  all  who  are  united  to  him  by  faith. 
For  the  pivot  of  the  argument  is  that  the  covenant  with 
Abraham  was  an  agreement  to  be  carried  out  by  faith,  not 
by  works  (Gal.  iii.  7,  8).  But  if  any  of  the  apostle's 
erring  converts  should  doubt  whether  such  an  interpreta- 
tion is  quite  legitimate,  their  instructor  insists  that  all 
scruple  should  be  removed  by  the  story  of  Hagar,  which 
the  divine  inspirer  of  the  Pentateuch  intended  to  be  an 
allegory  setting  forth  the  inferiority  of  the  merely  carnal 
descendants  of  Abraham  to  his  spiritual  descendants 
through  the  one  "  seed,"  the  Messiah  (v.  16).  "  Cast  out 
the  bond  woman  and  her  son  :  for  the  son  of  the  bond 
woman  shall  not  be  heir  with  the  son  of  the  free  woman. 
So  then,  brethren,  we  are  not  children  of  the  bond  woman, 
but  of  the  free  "  (Gal.  iv.  30,  31). 

To  treat  such  an  argument  with  apathetic  contempt,  as 
merely  puerile,  would  surely  indicate  our  lack  of  a 
"historic  conscience."  We  shall  do  more  justice  both  to 
the  apostolic  writer  and  to  ourselves  if  we  try  to  realise 
the  antithetic  spiritual  forces  of  which  such  contorted 
arguments  were  the  results.  For  St  Paul  was  possessed 
through  heredity  and  education  by  the  peremptory  cer- 
tainty of  a  revelation  made  by  Jahweh  through  the 
^  Gal.  iii.  16 ;  and  cf.  Gen.  xii.  2,  and  xvii.  7,  taken  together. 


THE   PECULIAR   POSITION   OF  ST  PAUL  167 

Patriarchs,  Moses,  and  the  Prophets.  Whatever  may- 
have  been  the  case  with  more  philosophic  Rabbis  of  later 
days,  Saul  of  Tarsus  had  not  the  most  infinitesimal  glimpse 
of  the  modern  sceptical  attitude  toward  the  evolution  of 
Judaism.  No  bodily  sense  of  actual  things  around  him 
could  give  him  the  same  imperturbable,  unquestioning 
— and  perhaps,  with  all  respect,  we  may  say,  stolid — 
feeling  of  sure  and  certain  reality  with  which  he  was 
aiFected  by  the  story  of  his  nation.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  in  early  manhood  his  soul  had  been  caught 
and  wrapped  in  the  blaze  of  a  far  more  luminous 
certainty,  dependent  neither  on  past  nor  future,  an  up- 
rush  in  his  soul  of  free  devotion  to  righteousness — or, 
as  he  calls  it,  "the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ 
esus.  ^ 
Yet,  so  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the  incomplete 
evidence  left  us,  there  was  never  in  his  mind  any  thought 
of  a  contradiction  between  the  national  and  the  personal 
revelation.  Nor  is  this  altogether  surprising.  For  even 
apart  from  the  disputable,  though  very  probable, 
hypothesis  of  Stephen's  influence,  many  methods  of 
reconciling  the  two  certainties  could  be  found  in  Rab- 
binical lore.  And  I  cannot  regard  as  genuine  rationalism 
the  disposition  to  see  nothing  but  absurdity  in  the  method 
chosen  ;  for  such  a  disposition  surely  betrays  a  deficiency 
in  the  "  historic  conscience."  But  the  irrationality  of 
such  rationalism  forms  no  excuse  for  the  opposite  extreme 
of  conservatism.  Indeed,  the  modern  bibliolater  who 
holds  fast  to  "  God's  word  written,"  notwithstanding  his 
acceptance  of    the  proved  facts   of    its    compilation,  and 

^  Rom.  viii.  2.  Even  if  the  Pauline  authorship  of  this  epistle  cannot 
be  sustained,  its  phraseology,  as  well  as  theology,  were  largely  borrowed 
from  him. 


1 68  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

also  notwithstanding  the  evaporation  of  many  of  its 
alleged  essential  facts  under  historic  criticism,  has  less 
excuse  in  reason  than  had  the  pupil  of  Gamaliel. 

Still,  St  Paul's  honest  quibble  about  "  the  seed  "  should 
illustrate  for  all  ages  the  facility  with  which  unreason 
may  be  disguised  as  reason  in  veracious  minds  saturated 
by  a  false  prepossession,  and  should,  therefore,  make  for 
charity.  The  inborn  habit  of  piety  which  assumes  that 
God  must  be  a  sort  of  magnified  human  father  ;  must^ 
therefore,  have  "  revealed  "  himself  to  his  human  children  ; 
and  which  proceeds  to  combine  this  certainty  with  the 
obvious  fact  that  there  is  only  one  Church  even  pretend- 
ing to  a  perpetual  impersonation  of  such  a  revelation 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world — has  been  conspicuous 
in  minds  that  still  command  veneration.  And  though 
the  paradox  oftener  takes  humbler  forms,  at  least  those 
great  instances  of  a  venerable  perversity  should  protect 
their  lowlier  imitators  from  irrational  bigotry.  Still,  the 
scared  awe  with  which  many  generations  have  regarded 
St  Paul's  preposterous  violations  of  common  sense  is 
suggestive  of  many  things  in  the  relations  of  Man  and 
the  Bible.  For  as  Spinoza  teaches,  if  we  confine  our 
attention  to  the  regulative  effects  of  biblical  tradition, 
we  must  acknowledge  that  many  benefits  have  accrued 
to  mankind  therefrom.  Yet,  apart  from  Spinoza,  it  must 
be  owned  that  the  price  of  those  benefits  paid  in  mental 
humiliation  has  apparently  delayed  for  centuries  the 
progress  of  the  world. 

St  Paul  handed  on  to  succeeding  Christian  writers  the 
ingenious  subtleties  of  non-natural  interpretation  learned 
in  his  Jewish  schools  ;  and  this  subtlety  became  in  later 
times  the  awkward  substitute  for  more  courageous 
freedom    of    thought.     I    have   already    referred    to    St 


THE   PAULINE   TRADITION  169 

Augustine's  methods  ;  and  anyone  who  turns  to  the 
imaginative  speculations  which  at  the  end  of  his  Con- 
fessions he  interweaves  with  the  plain  narrative  of 
creation  as  conceived  in  the  childhood  of  the  world,  will 
have  a  striking  illustration  of  the  illusions  which  belief 
in  "  God's  word  written "  imposed  on  almost  all  the 
noblest  minds  of  the  Church. 

For,  as  soon  as  the  letters  of  St  Paul  himself,  together 
with  the  artless  narratives  of  three  gospels,  and  the  anti- 
historic  idealism  of  the  fourth,  were  incorporated  with 
the  "  Word  of  God,"  the  same  ingenious  sophistries  were 
used  by  labouring  souls  to  make  those  writings  mean 
whatever  the  changing  moral  or  intellectual  tone  of 
succeeding  generations  required  that  they  should  mean. 
Thus,  by  certain  vague  and  indeterminate,  as  well  as 
legendary  words  said  to  have  been  addressed  by  Jesus  to 
St  Peter,  the  whole  claims  of  the  Papacy  were  supposed 
to  be  endorsed.  And  in  latest  times  "broad  Churchmen" 
— as  they  used  to  be  called — endeavoured  to  relieve 
Christianity  of  the  horror  of  "  everlasting  punishment " 
by  imputing  to  Jesus  and  his  apostles  certain  philosophic 
conceptions  of  eternity  of  which  it  is  practically  certain 
they  had  no  idea.^ 

And  again,  how  often  have  Arminian  opponents  of 
Calvinistic  fatalism  laboured  with  agony  to  put  some 
interpretation  on  Rom.  ix.,  x.,  and  xi.  other  than  that 
which  the  chapters  obviously  bear  !  The  instinct  which 
revolted  against  arbitrary  caprice  and  injustice  in  the 
Supreme  Being  could  not  be  repressed.     But  its  freedom 


^  It  does  not  follow  that  they  really  did  teach  ever-enduring  torments. 
For  that  also  is  a  metaphysical  conception,  as  foreign  to  their  habits  of 
thought  as  Spinoza's  eternity.  The  real  thought  was  that  of  a  cosmic 
catastrophe  in  which  the  perspectives  of  the  future  vanished. 


lyo  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

of  expression  was  necessarily  subject  to  reconcilability 
with  the  holy  syllables  of  "  God's  word  written."  The 
freedom  was  indeed  asserted,  but  it  was  done  at  the  cost 
of  humiliating  submission  to  false  interpretations,  of 
which,  notwithstanding  all  brave  protests,  the  "subliminal" 
self  was  perfectly  aware. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    BIBLE    AND    RELIGION 

During  the  period  of  the  Bible's  widest  sway  over  human 
life,  that  is  to  say,  throughout  the  greater  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  any  discussion  of  the  subject  at  the 
head  of  this  chapter  would  have  appeared  to  the  generality 
of  Christians  superfluous  or  paradoxical,  for  it  would 
have  seemed  to  them  that  they  might  as  well  raise 
questions  about  the  relations  of  physical  light  and  the  sun. 
As  in  this  case,  so  in  the  other,  it  was  admitted  that  many 
questions  of  interest  were  involved  in  the  detailed  effects 
of  the  heavenly  radiance  upon  human  receptivity  and 
upon  the  life  of  the  earth.  But  as  the  sun  embodied  or 
begot  all  light  possible  to  man,  so  the  Bible,  as  the  sole 
revelation  of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness,  was  identified 
with  religion.  There  could  not  therefore  be,  at  least  to 
the  common  apprehension,  any  question  of  mere  relation 
between  the  Bible  and  religion,  for  the  first  term  meant 
the  second. 

But  the  historical,  critical,  and  archaeological  investiga- 
tions, hardly  less  characteristic  of  the  last  century  than  was 
the  supremacy  of  the  Bible,  have  gradually  brought  home 
even    to    ordinary    intelligence    the    fact    that,    however 

valuable  may  be  the  influences  of  the   Book,  they  are 

171 


172  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

comparatively  novel  to  the  world.  They  are,  in  fact,  but 
of  yesterday,  in  contrast  to  the  unmeasured  ages  of  human 
experience  that  elapsed  before  the  first  chapter  of  the 
Bible  was  written.  And  they  are  merely  local  when 
compared  with  the  range  of  other  moral  and  spiritual 
influences  that  raised  and  ruined  empires,  framed  laws,  and 
enforced  social  order,  in  lands  undreamed  of  by  Hebrew 
ethnology,  and  during  millenniums  earlier  than  the  date 
assigned  to  Adam.  Such  achievements  as  these  were 
impossible  without  religion  ;  and  even  for  the  purpose  of 
an  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  Bible,  it  is  necessary  to 
inquire  what  effect,  if  any,  the  Book,  as  it  grew,  exerted 
on  pre-existing  religions  ;  how  far  it  rejected  and  destroyed 
them  ;  how  far  it  adopted,  remodelled,  "  re-stated  "  them  ; 
how  far  it  quickened  and  energised  the  forward  impulses 
recognisable  in  some  more  ancient  creeds.  Nay,  a 
generation  claiming,  as  ours  does,  for  all  sects,  freedom  of 
thought,  may  have  to  face  the  question  whether  in  any 
respect  the  Bible  has  stilled  the  breath  of  primeval  in- 
spiration, and  arrested  or  perverted  the  evolution  of  a 
higher  faith. 

It  is  obvious  that  such  an  inquiry  assumes  at  the  out- 
set a  wider  conception  of  religion  than  one  which  would 
identify  it  exclusively  with  that  of  any  denomination, 
however  great  and  renowned,  even  that  of  Christianity. 
The  late  Matthew  Arnold's  ingenious  suggestion  of 
"  morality  touched  with  emotion,"  would  be  very  valuable 
if  the  right  source  of  emotion  were  indicated.  But  it  is 
not  any  emotion  that  will  serve  our  purpose.  For  fear  of 
hell  is  an  emotion  ;  but  morality  touched  with  that  is  not 
only  not  religion,  it  is  not  morality.  And,  to  take  a 
better  source  of  emotion,  the  gratitude  felt  by  a  drunkard 
to  a  good  man  who  snatches    him  from   a   fatal    danger 


SPINOZA'S   DEFINITION   OF   RELIGION  173 

incurred  through  alcoholic  madness,  may  impell  the  poor 
wretch  to  a  dog's  obedience  for  a  time  ;  but  it  will  not  turn 
his  new  sobriety  into  religion.  So,  to  cut  a  useless  dis- 
cussion short,  I  hold  fast  to  Herbert  Spencer's  doctrine  that 
the  source  of  religious  emotion  is  "  the  thought  of  a  Power, 
of  which  Humanity  is  but  a  small  and  fugitive  product 
— a  Power  which  was  in  course  of  ever-changing  mani- 
festations before  Humanity  was,  and  will  continue  through 
other  manifestations  when  Humanity  has  ceased  to  be."  ^ 

Now  let  us  turn  to  Spinoza's  definition  of  religion  : 
"  I  include  under  religion  all  desires  and  acts  of  which  we 
are  the  cause,  through  our  having  the  idea  or  knowledge 
of  God."  ^  These  words,  interpreted  in  accordance  with 
the  use  of  language  in  the  Ethics^  mean  that  every  mental 
affection  or  active  impulse  arising  spontaneously  within 
our  proper  nature  through  the  possession  by  that  nature 
of  the  idea  or  knowledge  of  God,  is  religious.  But  the 
whole  system  of  Spinoza  implies  that  the  name  God  here 
has  a  meaning  akin  to,  though  not  identical  with,  the  import 
of  the  Spencerian  phrase,  "  That  which  is  behind  Humanity 
and  behind  all  other  things."  Thus  we  do  no  more  than 
reduce  Spinoza's  definition  to  a  practical  form  available  for 
everyday  life  if  we  say  that,  whatever  desires  or  active 
impulses  arise  in  us  of  such  a  kind  that  they  expand  beyond 


^  The  Study  of  Sociology,  2nd  ed.,  p.  311.  While  quoting  the  words 
exactly  as  they  appear  there,  I  do  not  forget  that  the  previous  context 
contains  phraseology  such  as  I  cannot  now  accept,  e.g.  "  behind  Humanity 
and  behind  all  other  things"  {cf.  Spinoza,  A  Ha?idbook  to  the  Ethics, 
Constable  &  Co.,  p.  9).  It  is  specially  the  assertion  of  one  exclusive 
source  of  religious  emotion  that  I  emphasise. 

2  Ethica,  Part  IV.,  Prop,  xxxvii.,  Schol.  :  "  Quiquid  cupimus  et  agimus, 
cujus  causa  sumus  quatemus  Dei  habemus  ideam,  sive  quatemus  Deum 
cognoscimus,  ad  Religionem  refero."  But  for  the  word  "  cognoscimus  " 
this  might  perhaps  include  the  rites  of  Mumbo  Jumbo.  Yet  I  do  not 
know  that  this  matters  much.     See  next  pages. 


174  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

self  and  exercise  our  loyalty  to  the  divine  Whole  of  which 
we  are  parts,  are  of  the  nature  of  religion.  When, 
therefore,  morality  is  touched  by  emotion  springing 
from  such  a  source,  it  is  capable,  if  time  were  given,  of 
attaining  the  highest  ideal  of  religion. 

But  I  am  not  assuming  that  it  necessarily  does  so. 
For  the  idea  of  God,  though  from  the  earliest  dawning  of 
human  thought  about  self  and  the  world,  associated  with 
a  mystic  outlook  toward  infinity,  has  throughout  the  life- 
time of  humanity  been  cramped  and  distorted  by  inevitable 
errors  incidental  to  the  evolution  of  mind.  And  the  only 
question  for  us  here  is  how  far  has  the  Bible  helped  to 
correct  those  errors,  to  remove  prepossessions,  to  clear 
the  way  for  the  largest  faith,  and  to  inspire  progress 
towards  it.  We  are  not  to  deny  the  reality  of  a  religion 
because  it  is  imperfect.  Nor  should  we  allow  ourselves 
to  be  prejudiced  against  any  historic  form  of  alleged 
divine  inspiration  because  it  could  not  convert  barbarians 
at  once  into  philosophic  saints.  But  we  may  fairly  expect 
as  a  guarantee  of  the  reality  of  that  inspiration  some 
evidence  of  an  expanding  and  purifying  influence  on  the 
morality  of  the  day.  Thus,  to  take  an  example  outside 
Christianity,  the  fact  that  an  Arab  prophet  in  the  seventh 
century  regarded  the  sword  as  a  proper  instrument  of 
conversion,  is  not  conclusive  against  the  divinity  of  the 
impulse  urging  that  prophet  to  proclaim  the  unity  of 
God.  But  the  absence  from  his  creed  of  any  scope  for 
expansion  toward  a  loyalty  to  the  universe,  or  even  toward 
a    true    human    catholicity,^  is    proof    enough    that    the 

*  This  was  written  before  the  recent  and  startling  revolution  in  Turkey. 
Whether  that  revolution  will  bring  about  a  permanent  renovation,  remains 
to  be  seen,  but  in  any  case  its  impulse  appears  to  have  come  from  "  young 
Turks,"  with  a  centre  of  organisation  in  Paris,  and  owing  much  to  French 
ideas. 


THE   TRUE   CATHOLICITY  175 

inspiration  was  very  imperfect.  And  the  total  failure 
of  Mohammedanism  to  raise  the  relations  of  man  and 
woman  toward  the  ideal  implicit  in  sex,  almost  justifies 
scepticism  as  to  the  existence  of  any  inspiration  at  all. 

The  point  of  view  I  shall  assume  is  that  of  a  religious 
Catholicism  wider  than  any  historic  church,  a  Catholicism 
which  regards  all  religions  from  the  days  of  fetishism  or 
animism,  whichever  was  prior,  as  essentially  one.  For 
they  have  all  been  concerned  with  desires  and  active 
impulses  arising  in  man  through  his  having  the  idea  or 
knowledge  of  God.  It  is  true  that  in  the  earliest  stages 
of  spiritual  evolution  this  idea  or  knowledge  is  so  rudi- 
mentary as  to  be  scarcely  cognisable.  But  that  is  equally 
true  of  the  earliest  rudiments  of  music,  painting,  architec- 
ture, law,  and  all  the  noblest  products  of  evolution.  For 
in  the  amorous  howlings  of  the  earliest  human  creatures, 
no  germs  of  the  tone-poetry  of  a  Wagner,  or  of  the  art 
of  a  Sims  Reeves  would  be  apparent,  even  to  an  angelic 
critic,  if  such  existed  then.  Nevertheless,  the  germs 
were  there,  and  the  continuity  of  evolution  has  been 
unbroken.  So  likewise  to  those  who  recognise  how 
evolution  embraces  not  only  the  material  but  the  spiritual 
forms  of  human  experience,  it  is  clear  that  both  animism  ^ 
and  fetishism  originated  in  desires  and  impulses  arising 
in  man  through  his  having  the  idea  or  impression  of  a 
Power  or  Powers,  real  indeed,  but  so  indefinite  as  to  be 
to  him  practically  infinite.  That  such  religions  suggested 
to  their  devotees  practices  revolting  to  our  developed  ideas 
and  perceptions,  is  no  more  than  can  be  said  of  creeds 


^  Of  course  I  take  this  term  as  meaning  not  merely  "  ghostism,"  but 
the  habit  of  regarding  all  things  as  in  some  sense  alive.  Fetishism 
certainly  invests  particular  objects  with  a  life  to  the  powers  of  which  no 
definite  bounds  are  set  by  the  savage  worshipper. 


176  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

very  much  higher  in  the  scale  of  evolution.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  facts  of  savage  life  in  later  days 
suggest,  or  indeed  prove,  that  faithfulness  to  the  tribe, 
heroism  in  battle,  honourable  observance  of  custom  and 
treaty,  as  well  as  the  rites  of  hospitality,  owed  much  of 
their  moral  energy  to  the  awe  inspired  by  trust  in  or 
dread  of  supernatural  powers.  Our  point,  then,  is 
this  :  that  the  gradual  refinement  and  exaltation  of  such 
barbaric  religions  to  the  spiritual  standard  of  an  Augustine 
or  a  Spinoza,  has  been  effected  through  special  forms  of 
human  experience,  such  as  imagined  interference  of  gods, 
supposed  chastisement  of  peoples  by  divine  wrath,  or 
blessings  upon  peoples  through  divine  approval,  reputed 
miracle,  the  prophetic  word,  and  its  embodiment  in 
literature  by  nations  boasting  sacred  books.  And  the 
object  of  our  inquiry  is  to  determine  what  part  has  been 
played  by  the  Bible  in  this  development  of  faith. 

Now,  in  dealing  with  this  question  the  sympathy  we 
naturally  feel  for  the  better  kind  of  bibliolatry  prevalent 
in  the  last  century  must  not  be  allowed  to  blind  us  to 
the  imperfection,  narrowness,  confusion,  and  occasionally 
even  the  falsehood,  of  the  ideas  out  of  which  that  enthusi- 
asm grew  ;  for  the  Bible-worship  of  our  sainted  grand- 
fathers regarded  the  Book  as  a  present  gift  from  God, 
and  took  no  thought  of  the  gradual  accretion  and  slow 
combination  of  its  parts.  In  fact,  they  treated  it  just  as 
they  would  have  done  a  volume  that  had  fallen  as  a  bolt 
from  heaven,  accompanied  by  such  a  voice  as  was  imagined 
on  Sinai,  declaring  it  to  be  the  first  and  last  word  of  the 
unseen  Deity  to  man,  until  the  world  should  end.  There 
it  was,  an  unmistakable  revelation  from  a  Being  whose 
secrecy  and  silence  apart  from  it  caused  many  searchings 
of  heart.     For  the  spasmodic  attempts  made  by  millions 


ARTIFICIAL   UNITY   OF   THE   BIBLE    177 

to  assure  themselves  of  "  a  very  present  God  "  subsided 
mostly  in  the  cry,  "Verily  thou  art  a  God  that  hidest 
thyself,"  and  only  a  few  realised  how  they  had  failed  to 
find  him  just  because  they  had  tried  to  identify  parts  of 
the  universe  with  the  Deity  who  constitutes  the  Whole. 
But  the  Bible-worshippers  found  a  solace  in  the  curious 
concatenation  of  concealment  and  revelation  found  in 
the  words  :  "  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time  :  the 
only  begotten  Son  which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father, 
he  hath  declared  him."  And  around  this  saying  all  the 
complex  and  heterogeneous  fragments  of  Hebrew  folklore 
and  poetry  and  story  grouped  themselves  from  Genesis 
to  the  Patmos  vision,  so  that  an  artificial  divine  unity 
was  forced  upon  a  number  of  varied  glimpses  of  human 
evolution. 

This  Bible,  thus  arbitrarily  stamped  with  a  unity  that 
existed  only  in  the  inherited  prepossessions  and  socially 
reinforced  devotion  of  the  readers,  was  thus  treated, 
notwithstanding  St  Paul,^  as  the  sole  witness  for  God  on 
earth.  Of  course,  there  were  what  OHver  Cromwell  used 
to  call  "  providences "  ;  and  there  were  the  lessons  of 
history  ;  and  to  the  mystic  there  was  the  inward  vision. 
Still,  in  the  age  of  the  Bible's  apotheosis,  all  these  were 
merely  a  reflex  of  what  the  student  of  "  the  Word  "  found 
in  its  sacred  pages.  Needless  is  it,  surely,  to  disclaim 
forgetfulness  of  the  scholars  and  divines,  brave  pioneers 
of  truer  thought,  who  not  only  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
but  in  the  eighteenth,  were  already  teaching  a  more 
accurate  and  therefore  a  more  reverential  estimate  of  the 
Scriptures.  But  we  are  treating  of  Man  and  the  Bible, 
and  therefore  are  most  interested  in  the  common  people. 

1  Acts   xiv.   17:    "Nevertheless  he  left  not   himself  without  witness," 
etc.,  even  among  those  who  had  no  Bible  at  all, 

IZ 


1 78  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

Now  such  superstitions  as  these  must  be  wholly  and 
utterly  abandoned,  if  we  would  get  a  true  answer  to  the 
question  raised  above, — How  far  has  the  Bible  helped  to 
clear  the  way  for  a  larger  faith  than  the  primeval  animisms, 
fetishisms,  and  idolatries,  and  to  inspire  progress  towards 
its  realisation  ?  In  attempting  to  answer  the  question  it 
might  seem  natural  to  turn  to  ancient  Israel,  and  ask  what 
it  did  for  the  so-called  "  chosen  people."  But  then  we 
are  brought  up  by  the  obvious  fact  that  ancient  Israel 
never  had  any  Bible  in  our  sense  of  the  word  until  after 
the  Babylonian  captivity  ;  and  even  then  it  was  incom- 
plete. Literature  the  Israelites  did  indeed  possess  at  a 
comparatively  early  period,  as,  for  instance,  the  Book  of 
Jashar  and  the  Book  of  the  Wars  of  the  Lord.  How 
far  these  have  been  preserved  to  us  embedded  in  later 
works,  it  would  perhaps  puzzle  the  greatest  professors  of 
the  higher  criticism  to  tell  us.  But  at  any  rate  they  are 
very  confident,  and  apparently  on  good  grounds,  that 
the  eighth  and  seventh  centuries  B.C.  saw  the  comple- 
tion by  two  authors  or  compilers,  belonging  one  to  the 
northern  and  the  other  to  the  southern  kingdom,  of  two 
documents  of  folklore  containing  the  chief  adventures 
attributed  by  mythical  memory  to  the  forefathers  and 
heroes  of  the  race.  But  these  documents  ^  gave  no 
account  of  the  Creation,  unless  the  strange  and  mutilated 
fragment  in  Gen.  ii.  can  be  considered  such.  They 
contained  few  Psalms,  or  religious  hymns,  unless  we  may 
consider  as  such  the  Song  of  Lamech,  the  blessing  of 
Jacob,  the  Song  of  Miriam,  and  such  like.     Nor  were  any 

1  Called  E  and  J  by  the  critics,  and  to  be  carefully  distinguished  from 
P,  the  Priests'  Document,  dating,  in  its  complete  form,  from  the  Captivity, 
and  containing  nearly  all  the  religion  and  ritual  of  the  Pentateuch,  No 
one  holds  that  the  religion  and  ritual  were  then  newly  invented,  but  only 
that  they  then  received  the  form  in  which  we  know  them. 


THE   HEBREW   SCRIPTURES  179 

such  higher  religious  elements  added  when  the  two 
documents  were  combined  and  formed  into  one  book  in 
the  course,  perhaps,  of  the  seventh  century  b.c.^  There 
were  indeed  psalms,  used  in  the  service  of  the  Tabernacle 
or  Temple,  probably  from  the  time  of  David.  For  the 
total  rejection  of  the  steadfast  popular  tradition  about  the 
"  sweet  singer  of  Israel "  seems  to  me  unreasonable,  since 
the  belief  involves  nothing  impossible  or  irrational.^ 

But,  taking  the  Jewish  Scriptures  as  they  existed  in  the 
seventh  century  b.c,  before  Deuteronomy  was  added, 
let  us  ask  what  there  was  in  them  calculated  to  inaugurate 
a  movement  toward  the  more  spiritual  rehgion  of  the 
future.  We  can  scarcely  say  that  they  taught  monotheism 
as  it  was  afterwards  understood.  But  they  did  certainly 
insist  that  the  ancestral  relations  of  Israel  ^  with  Jahweh 
were  so  close  and  sacred  that  any  worship  of  other  gods 

^  The  reasons  for  such  an  approximate  date  are  well  given  by  Carpenter 
and  Battersby  in  their  Hexateuch^  vol.  i.  chap,  xvi. 

2  Of  course  the  identification  of  existing  Psalms  with  David's  songs  is 
a  very  different  question.  Here  the  "historic  conscience"  comes  into 
play ;  linguistic  problems  arise  ;  and  discussions  of  congruity  with  the 
times  to  which  they  are  referred.  Wellhausen  is  probably  right  in 
describing  the  collection  as  "the  hymn-book  of  the  Second  Temple." 
But,  notwithstanding  his  learning,  I  still  hope  he  is  wrong  in  questioning 
"  whether  the  Psalms  contain  any  poems  written  before  the  Exile." 

3  To  my  mind  the  theory  of  Professor  Karl  Budde,  that  the  nomade 
Hebrews,  before  they  reached  Canaan,  were  induced  by  the  Kenites  to 
adopt  the  god  of  the  latter,  and  to  make  a  solemn  covenant  with  him  at 
Sinai,  appears  to  have  many  elements  of  probability.  Certainly  it  goes 
far  to  account  for  the  constant  iteration  of  the  "covenant"  by  priests  and 
prophets.  I  don't  remember  any  other  people  whose  service  of  their  god 
began  with  a  formal  covenant.  But  Professor  Budde  surely  yields  too 
much  to  tradition  when  he  maintains  the  Egyptian  captivity,  notwith- 
standing the  utter  absence  of  any  confirmation  by  Egyptian  inscriptions 
or  remains  in  Goshen.  The  so-called  "treasure  cities"  prove  nothing,  in 
the  absence  of  any  evidence  whatever  that  Hebrew  serfs  were  employed 
on  them.  Professor  Cheyne's  theory  of  the  issue  of  a  nomade  race  from 
North  Arabia — Muzri — is  more  likely.  But  see  Die  Religion  des  Volke 
Israel^  etc.^  von  Dr  Karl  Budde,  Giessen,  1900. 


i8o  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

on  the  part  of  his  chosen  people  was  worse  than  treason, 
and  of  the  nature  of  sacrilege.  Yet  that  this  duty  of 
loyalty  to  Jahweh  rested  on  no  theological  or  philosophical 
monotheism  is  abundantly  proved  by  the  numerous 
passages  in  which  the  Old  Testament  writers  lament  the 
levity  with  which  the  Israelites  transfer  their  allegiance  to 
the  various  "  Baalim "  of  surrounding  tribes.^  This 
levity  is  quite  inconsistent  with  any  pre-existing  deep- 
seated  conviction,  founded  on  revelation,  that  there  was 
only  one  God  in  the  universe,  and  this  God,  Jahweh. 
But  it  is  quite  consistent  with  a  formal  covenant  which 
the  third  or  fourth  generation  of  covenanters  did  not  find 
it  convenient  to  keep.  Those  who  went  after  the  various 
"  Baalim  "  had  not  the  least  intention  to  deny  the  deity 
of  Jahweh.  But  the  various  Baalim  were  also  gods 
having  special  influence  over  their  own  territories,  and 
to  recently  arrived  invaders  of  these  territories  it  might 
be  of  the  utmost  practical  importance  to  cultivate  their 
goodwill.  Herein  lies  the  whole  explanation  of  what  is 
often  supposed  to  be  the  sheer  perversity  of  early  Hebrew 
idolatry. 

But  this  is  mentioned  only  to  suggest  the  moral  and 
material  difficulties  through  which  henotheism  —  or  the 
doctrine  of  one  nation,  one  god, — had  to  struggle,  before 
it  was  established  as  the  national  faith.  And  that  this 
was  of  the  utmost  importance  for  the  future  expansion 
of  this  new  phase  of  original  fetishism,  will,  I  hope,  be 
soon  apparent.  For  without  the  henotheism  of  the 
early  Hebrews,  their  later  monotheism,  or  that  of  the 
Mahommedans,  could  never  have  arisen  ;  and  it  was 
the  Hebrew  monotheism  which  was  the  germ  of  Spinoza^s 

1  See  Judges  ii.  ii,  etc.  ;  i  Sam.  viii.  8  ;  Ezek.  xx.  The  rest  are  given 
by  Professor  Karl  Budde. 


SPINOZA'S  INDEBTEDNESS  TO  THE  BIBLE  i8i 

conception  of  God  and  the  universe.^  But,  in  consider- 
ing the  evolution  of  that  conception,  and  in  estimating 
the  influence  of  the  Bible  upon  it,  we  must  carefully 
keep  in  mind  what  has  been  said  above  of  the  profound 
moral  significance  underlying  Spinoza's  definition  of 
religion  as  including  all  that  we  desire  and  do  through 
having  the  idea  of  God.  For  in  Spinoza's  gospel  that 
idea  is  the  great  Whole  of  which  we  are  essential  parts, 
and  he  that  realises  this  must  necessarily  rise  beyond 
self.  It  is  a  long,  long  pilgrimage  from  the  covenant 
God  of  Sinai  to  the  clear  and  grand  thoughts  of  the 
seventeenth-century  Jew.  But  it  is  a  sacred  pilgrimage, 
a  progressive  elevation  of  thought  and  aspiration,  uncon- 
sciously craving  the  blessed  goal  toward  which  all  im- 
perfect religions  are  striving,  and  which  they  at  length 
must  reach.  Our  purpose  here  is  to  trace  the  work  of 
the  Hebrew  and  Christian  literature  in  their  trans- 
figuration. 

It  would  be  inconsistent  with  the  scheme  of  this  treatise 
to  follow  out  in  detail  all  the  steps  by  which  Jewish 
henotheism  was  transformed  into  universal  or  at  least 
general  monotheism,  the  belief  in  one  God,  one  Universe. 
But  the  student  of  the  Bible  knows  that  this  faith  first 
appears  clearly  and  distinctly  in  the  prophets  and  later 
psalmists.  Now,  just  in  proportion  as  this  belief  pre- 
vailed, the  moral  connotations  of  religion  tended  to 
predominate  over  mere  ritual.  This  is  apparent  in  what 
is  called  the  Deuteronomic  literature  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, including,  besides  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  many 
hortatory  passages  outside  of  it.     Not  that  this  Deutero- 

1  In  saying  this,  of  course,  I  am  fully  aware  of  what  he  owed  to 
Descartes  and  earlier  philosophers  ;  but,  religiously^  the  germ  of  his 
pantheism  lay  in  his  traditional  monotheism. 


1 82  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

nomic  literature  entirely  despised  ritual,  but  it  was 
certainly  characterised  by  a  tendency  to  disparage  cere- 
monial as  compared  with  the  affections  of  the  heart. 
The  psalmist  who  wrote — 

"Sacrifice  and  offering  thou  dost  not  desire, 
Burnt-ofFering  and  sin-ofFering  thou  dost  not  demand. 
Mine  ears  hast  thou  opened 
By  the  book  of  the  law  prescribed  to  me. 
To  do  thy  will,  my  God,  is  my  delight, 
And  in  my  heart  is  thy  law," 

was  certainly  of  this  school  of  religionists.^  But,  if  we 
may  borrow  the  language  of  St  Paul,  Jeremiah  "  is  very 
bold,"  and  says  :  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the 
God  of  Israel  :  Put  your  burnt-offerings  unto  your 
sacrifices,  and  eat  flesh.  For  I  spake  not  unto  your 
fathers  nor  commanded  them  in  the  day  that  I 
brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  concerning 
burnt-offerings  or  sacrifices  :  but  this  thing  commanded 
I  them,  saying.  Obey  my  voice,  and  I  will  be  your  God 
and  ye  shall  be  my  people."  Whatever  may  be  the 
ingenious  methods  by  which  this  utterance  is  reconciled 
with  the  words  of  Exodus  and  Leviticus,  at  any  rate  it 
bears  witness  to  a  growing  predominance  of  the  moral 
connotations  over  the  external  ritualism  of  religion,  and 
so  far  it  is  a  witness  to  the  spiritual  tendencies  of  the 
later  monotheism  as  compared  with  the  earlier  heno- 
theism  or  faith  in  the  tribal  god. 

1  The  translation  is  that  of  the  Polychrome  Bible,  under  the  editorship 
of  Dr  J.  Wellhausen.  If  it  should  occur  to  anyone  to  refer  to  i  Sam.  xv. 
22,  "  Behold,  to  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,"  etc.,  let  him  consider  that 
what  had  there  been  required  was  obedience  to  a  savage  command  and 
suppression  of  all  human  sympathy.  Such  an  obedience  was  as  much 
an  act  of  external  ritual  as  any  sacrifice  or  burnt-offering.  The  sentiment 
of  the  fierce  Samuel  differs  entirely  from  that  of  Psalm  xl. 


EVOLUTION  OF    MONOTHEISM         183 

The  vulgar  remained  henotheists,  believing,  no  doubt, 
that  their  tribal  Jahweh  was  stronger  than  any  of  the  Baals, 
and  would  ultimately  be  more  than  a  match  for  Merodach, 
yet  still  holding  that  his  proper  subjects  were  his 
covenanted  people.  But  the  prophets,  with  their  more 
spiritual  ideas  of  one  Universe,  one  God,  influenced  in 
the  first  place  the  more  cultured  priests,  and  through 
them  the  few  educated  laymen,  and  gradually  also  the 
many  to  whom  the  prophetic  lyrics  or  exhortations  were 
recited  or  sung.  But  what  inspired  the  prophets  ?  So 
far  as  they  were  influenced  by  the  half-developed  Bible, 
Man  is  indebted  to  the  latter  for  a  beneficent  spiritual 
revolution  toward  which  only  the  most  inefl^ective  impulse 
can  be  discerned  in  the  great  literatures  of  Greece  and 
Rome.^  It  is,  indeed,  doubtful  whether  the  noblest 
declarations  concerning  God  in  the  most  ancient  Bible 
could  have  been  known  to  the  earlier  prophets,  for 
the  best  scholars  regard  the  sublime  name  /  ^M  (Ex. 
iii.  14)  as  the  addition  of  an  extremely  late  philosophical 
editor.  So  too  the  advanced,  though  by  no  means 
perfect,  proclamation  of  the  divine  attributes  to  Moses, 
appearing  incongruously  amidst  an  incident  of  debased 
anthropomorphism,  when  the  lawgiver  is  allowed  to  see 
only  the  "  back  parts  "  of  his  God,  is  pronounced  both 
by  reason  and  authority^  to  be  much  later  than  the 
childish  story  in  which  it  is  found.  Similarly,  the  story 
of  creation  in  Gen.  i.,  founded  on  Babylonian  docu- 
ments, but  much  simplified  and  ennobled  by  Jewish 
editors,  had  not  been  prefixed  to  the  Bible  of  the  earlier 

1  The  idea  was  there,  of  course,  but  it  did  not  take  the  practical  form 
needed  to  lay  hold  on  the  common  people. 

2  That   is,   the  hard-earned   authority   of  laborious   scholarship.     See 
Carpenter  and  Battersby's  Hexateuch  on  the  passage. 


1 84  MAN    AND    THE    BIBLE 

prophets.  Still,  the  tradition  of  the  call  of  Abraham, 
unhistorical  as  it  is,  suggested  vaguely  a  larger  theism 
than  that  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees.  And  various  incidents 
included  in  the  Bible  of  Jeremiah,  or,  at  any  rate,  in  the 
traditions  of  his  time,  were  suggestive  of  the  transforma- 
tion of  aboriginal  fetishism  into  a  more  moral  religion. 
The  story  of  Joseph  has  to  me  much  more  of  a  literary 
than  a  moral  interest.  Still,  his  resistance  to  one  tempta- 
tion, and  his  generous  requital  of  the  wrong  done  to  him 
in  youth  by  his  brothers,  together  with  the  ample  material 
rewards  received  by  him,  may  have  been  m  very  early 
times  a  dim  hint  of  a  "  power  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness," and  is  able  to  control  local  gods.  Even  the  bloody 
career  of  David  is  not  without  some  relieving  incidents 
which  are  similarly  suggestive  of  a  better  religion  than 
he  knew  ;  such,  for  instance,  was  his  submission  to  the 
rebuke  of  Nathan  after  the  dastardly  crime  against  Uriah, 
and  also,  though  in  a  less  degree,  his  refusal  to  drink  of  the 
Bethlehem  water  for  which  he  had  longed,  because  it  was 
obtained  by  blood. 

We  must  not  undervalue  such  hints  of  the  germination 
of  a  moral  and  spiritual  monotheism  in  the  earlier  days 
of  the  covenant  religion  ;  but  such  a  violent  contradic- 
tion of  ritualistic  tradition  as  we  find  in  the  above-quoted 
words  of  Jeremiah,  is  suggestive  of  more  potent  influences. 
Thus  the  increasing  closeness  of  political  relationships 
between  the  peoples  of  Western  Asia  would  appear  to  have 
widened  the  view  of  the  prophets.  For  the  gradual  evolu- 
tion of  a  new  empire  by  the  suppression  of  the  smaller 
kingdoms,  the  subordination  of  Egypt,  the  growth  of  a 
resistless  sovereignty  rooted  in  ancient  Akkad,  gathering 
to  itself  power  by  various  revolutions,  centralising  in 
Babylon  the  whole  resources  of  Mesopotamia,  and  cul- 


HENOTHEISM    AND    HISTORY  185 

minating  in  the  supremacy  of  the  invading  Cyrus  over 
all  the  world  known  to  the  Jews,  made  impossible  the  old 
idolatry  which  set  up  godlets  over  each  region,  with  no 
co-ordinating  power  above  them  other  than  blind  fate.  So 
it  came  to  pass  that  the  concentration  of  earthly  power 
was  paralleled  by  the  unification  of  the  heavenly  realms. 
And  as  the  prophets  were  Jews,  it  was  inevitable  that 
their  Jahweh  was  selected  to  be  in  heaven  what  Cyrus 
was  on  earth. 

The  question  naturally  occurs  why  this  impulse  to  a 
spiritual  monotheism  so  exceptionally  affected  the  Jews, 
and  why,  for  instance,  the  Babylonians  did  not  put 
forward  a  similar  claim  on  behalf  of  Marduk  or  Ea. 
The  answer  is  twofold.  For,  firstly,  the  Jahweh  covenant 
concentrated  the  attention  of  his  worshippers  more 
exclusively  upon  himself  than  was  possible  in  the  case 
of  any  deity  not  consecrated  by  any  such  special  bond. 
And  next,  we  must  accept  as  a  fact  proved  by  the 
experience  of  three  thousand  years,  that  the  Jews  had 
what  we  can  describe  only  as  a  special  genius  for  religion. 
In  their  grand  aspirations  toward  a  realisation  of  the 
unity  of  spiritual  life  and  power,  an  aspiration  which 
culminates  in  Spinoza,  they  have  no  rivals.  For 
Mahommedanism  is  at  best  a  pale  plagiarism  of  un- 
developed Hebrew  religion.  And  though  the  Christian 
Church,  an  offshoot  of  Judaism,  can  boast  great  saints, 
theosophists,  and  preachers,  its  Origens  and  Augustines 
and  Luthers  and  Calvins  are  mere  spiritual  pygmies  when 
contrasted  with  the  Isaiahs,  the  Psalmists,  the  Evangelists, 
or  St  Paul.  Why  it  should  be  so  is  simply  an  unanswer- 
able question.  We  might  as  well  ask  why  Greece  was 
so  pre-eminent  in  literature,  art,  or  philosophy,  and 
Republican    Rome,  on    the    other    hand,  in    war,  juris- 


1 86  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

prudence,  and  polity.  The  characteristics  were  in  the 
soul  of  the  people.  But  why  they  were  so  is  a  question 
the  solution  of  which  requires  a  greater  knowledge  of 
the  interaction  between  Man  and  the  Universe  than  is 
ever  likely  to  be  attained. 

But,  be  that  as  it  may,  the  later  psalmists  and  the 
prophets  did  exalt  the  imperfect  monotheism  of  the 
oldest  Bible  into  an  interesting  and  beautiful  anticipation 
of  a  yet  wider  and  more  spiritual  religion.  Thus  Psalm 
Ixxii.  prefigures  a  new  moral  world  in  which  community 
of  interest  shall  be  so  realised  that  the  "  poor  and  needy  " 
shall  be  safe  from  "  deceit  and  violence,"  and  their  blood 
shall  be  as  precious  as  that  of  kings.  Alas  !  the  shame- 
ful inequalities  of  social  conditions  at  home,  and  the 
unabashed  cruelties  attendant  on  the  march  of  empire 
abroad,  painfully  remind  us  that  "  the  vision  is  yet  for 
an  appointed  time."  But  it  is  still  as  true  as  when 
Habakkuk  wrote  the  words  that  "the  just  shall  live  by 
his  faith  "  ;  and  the  principles  suggested  to  faith  by  the 
seers  of  the  later  pre-Christian  centuries  cannot  die.  The 
very  next  following  Psalm  (Ixxiii.)  suggests  such  a  grasp  of 
the  oneness  of  the  moral  order  as  no  mere  monotheism 
could  or  ever  can  permanently  satisfy.  The  apparent 
disorders  of  the  world,  the  supposed  triumph  of  the 
wicked,  the  outward  disasters  of  the  true  and  good,  all 
fall  into  their  place  as  parts  of  an  ordered  whole  when  the 
Psalmist  goes  into  the  sanctuary  of  God,  and  realises  the 
potency  of  a  divine  life  embracing  all.  "  So  foolish  was 
I,  and  ignorant :  I  was  as  a  beast  before  thee.  Neverthe- 
less I  am  continually  with  thee  :  thou  hast  holden  me 
by  my  right  hand.  Thou  leadest  me  according  to  thy 
counsel,  and  takest  me  by  the  hand  after  thee.  Whom 
have  I  in  heaven  but  thee  ?  and  there  is  none  upon  earth 


PSALMISTS   AND   PROPHETS  187 

that  I  desire  beside  thee.  My  flesh  and  my  heart 
faileth  :  but  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart,  and  my 
portion  for  ever."  ^  For  the  ultimate  goal  of  such 
spiritual  aspirations  we  may  have  to  press  beyond 
Augustine,  A'Kempis,  or  Tauler,  and  find  it  at  last  in 
Spinoza's  Intellectual  hove  of  God.  For  further  illustra- 
tions of  the  increasing  morality  of  the  later  Jewish 
monotheism,  we  might  refer  to  Psalms  xv.,  xxiv.,  xxxiv., 
xxxvii.,  li.,  and  many  others,  not  forgetting  the  hundred 
and  nineteenth,  prosaic  certainly,  but  a  strong  testimony 
to  the  moral  tendencies  of  the  monotheism  of  that 
writer's  day. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  the  prophets,  even  those 
of  the  Isaiah  literature,  advanced  much  beyond  some  of 
the  Psalms  in  the  spiritualisation  of  Jewish  monotheism. 
But,  after  all,  there  is  a  difference  between  hymns — even 
the  best — and  poetry.  Thus  the  hymns  of  Watts, 
Wesley,  Cowper,  and  Faber  are  intensely  devotional  after 
the  fashion  of  the  Psalms.  But  the  religious  musings 
of  Coleridge,  and  Wordsworth's  contemplations  of  the 
universe,  and  even  the  late  Lord  Tennyson's  rhythmic 
expositions  of  the  "  broad "  theology  of  his  day,  have 
more  volume  and  substance,  and  more  intricate  connota- 
tions of  infinite  truth.  A  similar,  though  certainly  not 
identical,  relation  exists  between  the  utterances  of  the 
psalmists  and  the  most  spiritual  prophets.  Thus,  take 
the  first  chapter  of  Isaiah — the  exact  position  of  which 
in  the  literature  bearing  that  name  it  is  not  necessary  to 
determine  ;  we  find  here,  instead  of  merely  emotional 
utterances,  such  as  those  of  Psalm  li.,  a  poetic  and  yet 

1  Where  possible  I  gladly  keep  to  the  Authorised  Version  for  reasons 
given  in  chap.  ii.  p.  47,  but  in  the  above  I  adopt  the  Polychrome  Bible 
version  of  verse  24,  because  the  Anglican  is  certainly  misleading. 


1 88  MAN   AND   THE    BIBLE 

reasoned  exposition  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  situation 
of  the  covenanted  people.  The  old  ritual,  according  to 
the  description  of  the  prophet,  was  maintained,  but  the 
moral  ideal  to  which — in  the  view  of  the  prophet — it 
pointed,  was  entirely  ignored.  And  though  this  moral 
indifference  had — according  to  the  prophetic  theory — 
brought  a  palpable  and  material  curse  upon  the  land,  yet 
the  misguided  people  had  no  notion  of  any  remedy  but 
a  revival  of  fetishism  and  the  multiplication  of  burnt- 
offerings  and  sacrifice.  In  such  a  condition  of  courtly 
and  popular  opinion,  it  was  surely  a  brave  voice  that 
cried  :  "  Bring  no  more  vain  oblations  ;  incense  is  an 
abomination  unto  me."  .  .  .  .  "  Wash  you  ;  make  you 
clean  ;  put  away  the  evil  of  your  doings  from  before 
mine  eyes  ;  cease  to  do  evil ;  learn  to  do  well  ;  seek 
judgment,  relieve  the  oppressed,  judge  the  fatherless, 
plead  for  the  widow." 

The  topic  being  merely  incidental,  it  is  impossible  here 
to  trace  the  expansion  of  this  national  moral  ideal  into  a 
world-wide  vision,  which  foreshadowed  that  republic  of 
man  which  is  the  true  kingdom  of  God.  But  the  vision 
is  certainly  there,  though  dim.  Israel  is  to  be  a  "  light 
of  the  Gentiles  ;  to  open  the  blind  eyes  ;  to  bring  out 
the  prisoners  from  the  prison,  and  them  that  sit  in 
darkness  out  of  the  prison-house."  The  divine  vice- 
gerent chosen  to  set  Israel  free  for  this  spiritual  mission 
to  all  mankind  is  himself  a  heathen  sovereign.  Thus  the 
Isaiah  literature  anticipated  St  Paul  in  "  breaking  down 
the  middle  wall  of  partition,"  and  making  all  mankind 
one  in  God.  "  Neither  let  the  son  of  the  stranger  that 
hath  joined  himself  to  the  Lord  speak,  saying.  The  Lord 
hath  utterly  separated  me  from  his  people  :  neither  let 
the    eunuch    say.  Behold,   I    am    a    dry    tree  ....  for 


EZEKIEL  AND  HIS  MODERN  COMPEERS  189 

mine  house  shall  be  called  a  house  of  prayer  for  all 
people."  And  then,  with  a  note  of  contradiction  not 
surprising  in  a  variety  of  authors  :  "  Thus  saith  the 
Lord,  The  heaven  is  my  throne,  and  the  earth  is  my 
footstool :  where  is  the  house  that  ye  build  unto  me  ? 
and  where  is  the  place  of  my  rest  ?  For  all  those  things 
hath  mine  hand  made,  and  all  those  things  have  been, 
saith  the  Lord  :  but  to  this  man  will  I  look,  even  to  him 
that  is  poor,  and  of  a  contrite  spirit,  and  trembleth  at  my 
word"  (Is.  Ixvi.  i). 

The  paradoxical  position  of  Ezekiel,  who  begins  by 
proclaiming  with  incisive  eloquence  the  superiority  of 
moral  principle  both  to  reHgious  tradition  and  to 
diplomacy,  and  who  ends  by  a  tediously  minute  descrip- 
tion of  an  imaginary  temple  and  ritual,  need  not  detain  us. 
Our  own  age  has  seen  in  certain  sections  of  the  Roman 
and  Anglican  Churches  a  very  similar  combination  of 
intense  moral  conviction  and  revived  devotion  to  ritual. 
In  such  cases  we  always  welcome  the  earnestness  of 
moral  aspiration,  while  at  the  same  time  we  insist  that  the 
reaction  toward  fetishism  is  fortuitous,  unreal,  and  explic- 
able by  ecclesiastical  accidents.  So  in  the  case  of  Ezekiel, 
if  the  whole  book  ascribed  to  him  is  really  his,  we  hail 
his  strong  convictions  of  truth  and  righteousness  as 
veracious  prophecies  of  the  religion  yet  to  be.  But  his 
curious  descriptions  of  an  ideal  temple,  and  its  material- 
istic rites,  may  well  be  assigned  to  the  carnal  prejudices 
which  haunted  the  "  subliminal  consciousness "  of  the 
descendant  of  many  generations  of  priests. 

Resuming  now  our  proper  subject  of  the  influence  of 
the  Bible  on  religion,  as  defined  on  page  176,  I  suggest 
with  some  confidence  that  it  would  be  diflicult  to  find  in 
the    rudimentary  Bible    possessed  by  the    psalmists    and 


I90  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

prophets  any  adequate  inspiration  of  their  nobler  and 
more  spiritual  monotheism.  The  tribal  god  who 
required  a  father  to  offer  a  son  as  a  burnt-offering,  who 
sanctioned  through  Joseph — according  to  the  story — the 
extortion  from  a  famine-stricken  people  of  the  surrender 
of  their  land,  their  cattle,  and  their  personal  freedom  as 
the  price  of  relief  by  their  own  king,  could  hardly  suggest 
the  heavenly  Father  revealed  to  Isaiah,  or  the  Psalmist's 
Messianic  ruler,  who  should  "  deliver  the  needy  when  he 
crieth,  the  poor  also,  and  him  that  hath  no  helper."  Nor 
is  this  reflection  at  all  invalidated  by  the  occurrence  here 
and  there  in  the  rudimentary  Bible  of  hints  of  a  better 
theology  ;  for,  as  previously  mentioned,  in  some  crucial 
cases  they  are  nearly  always  later  insertions.  Or,  if  the 
Deuteronomic  literature  be  cited,  it  really  belongs  to  the 
prophetic  age,  and  is  among  the  first-fruits  of  the  new 
theology,  for  which  we  have  to  account.  There  is  no 
miracle,  there  is  no  supernatural  revelation  needed  to 
explain  it.  The  tribal  theocracy  had  broken  down  under 
the  stress  of  world-wide  political  change.  Cruel,  indeed, 
was  the  conviction  borne  in  upon  the  prophets  that  the 
covenanted  tribal  Jahweh  had  proved  to  be  weaker  than 
the  hosts  of  Asshur  and  Babylon.  But  with  a  fine 
courage  which  many  champions  of  outworn  doctrines 
against  masterful  fact  would  do  well  to  imitate,  they 
plucked  even  from  despair  the  power  of  a  resurrection, 
for  they  refused  to  credit  the  gods  of  Assyria  or  Babylon 
with  the  superior  might  that  crushed  Israel.  No  ;  their 
forefathers  had  misunderstood  the  mystery  of  their  God 
and  of  his  immeasurable  attributes.  Those  forefathers 
ought,  indeed,  to  have  known  better  ;  for  there  is  no  new 
theology  ever  propounded  which  is  not  at  the  same  time 
declared  to  have    been    from    of    old,  from    everlasting. 


THE   NEW   THEOLOGY   ALWAYS   OLD    191 

"  Have  ye  not  known  ?  Have  ye  not  heard  ?  Hath  it 
not  been  told  you  from  the  beginning  ?  Have  ye  not 
understood  from  the  foundations  of  the  earth  ?  It  is 
he  that  sitteth  upon  the  circle  of  the  earth  ;  and  the 
inhabitants  thereof  are  as  grasshoppers  ;  that  stretcheth 
out  the  heavens  as  a  curtain,  and  spreadeth  them  out  as  a 
tent  to  dwell  in."^  It  was  this  supreme  God,  not  of  one 
tribe  only,  but  of  the  whole  universe,  whose  mysterious 
counsels  required  the  temporary  humiliation  of  Israel,  and 
the  apparent  triumph  of  foreign  despots,  who  were  but 
pawns  in  his  hands.  "Thus  saith  Jahweh  to  his  anointed, 
to  Cyrus,  whose  right  hand  I  have  holden,  to  subdue 
nations  before  him.  ...  I  will  go  before  thee,  and  make 
the  crooked  straight  :  I  will  break  in  pieces  the  gates  of 
brass,  and  cut  in  sunder  the  bars  of  iron.  ...  1  am 
Jahweh,  and  there  is  none  else,  there  is  no  God  beside 
me  :  I  girded  thee,  though  thou  hast  not  known  me " 
(Is.  xlv.  1-5). 

It  is  true  that  even  in  the  context  of  such  passages 
there  is  a  reservation  of  Jahweh's  special  favour  for  Israel, 
just  as  in  war-time  now,  the  most  eloquent  Christian 
sermons  on  God's  universal  fatherhood  will  always  imply 
a  special  leaning  of  Almighty  power  toward  his  English- 
men. But  the  legend  of  Dagon  and  the  captured  Ark, 
when  contrasted  with  the  prophetic  monotheism,  clearly 
suggests  that  while  in  those  barbarous  times  the  tribal 
Jahweh  did  not  disdain  a  trial  of  strength  with  other 
tribal  gods,  in  the  new  age  such  a  thing  was  inconceivable. 
For  all  the  gods  of  the  heathen  were  idols  ;  and  the  best 

^  Let  this  and  similar  passages  of  the  prophets  be  compared  carefully 
with  the  childish  story  of  the  theophanies  in  Genesis  and  Exodus  (Gen. 
xviii.  20,  21,  etc.  ;  xxviii.  13,  etc.  ;  Exod.  xxxiii.  20-23),  and  it  will  be  clear 
that  something  other  than  the  old  writings  had  elevated  the  religion  of 
the  prophets. 


192  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

of  the  Israelites  had  already  attained  St  Paul's  con- 
temptuous conviction  that  "an  idol  is  nothing  in  the 
world."  Further,  the  sense  in  which  Israel  still  remained 
a  chosen  people  was  much  more  religious  than  that  of 
the  old  savagery  of  Joshua,  Gideon,  and  Jael.  It  was  not 
merely  for  themselves,  and  for  their  own  advantage  that 
they  remained  God's  chosen  people,  but  for  the  sake 
of  the  whole  world,  on  which  they  were  to  reflect  the 
virtues  that  make  for  unity  and  peace  and  brotherhood. 
This  is  touchingly  shown  in  the  romance  of  Jonah,  the 
fine  meaning  of  which  was  for  a  long  time  missed  through 
ridiculous  wrangles  about  an  impossible  whale. 

The  pious  narrator — who  probably  never  dreamed  that 
his  apologue  would  afterwards  be  taken  as  prosaic  fact — 
represents  Jonah  as  called  upon  to  do  duty  for  Israel  by 
awakening  the  Ninevites  to  a  sense  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment which  extended  over  them  as  well  as  the  Jews. 
But  Jonah  fails  in  the  courage  of  his  faith,  and  suffers 
accordingly,  by  sinking,  as  all  such  cowards  do,  into  "the 
belly  of  hell."  Then,  being  dragged  up  again  by  divine 
power,  and  once  more  brought  face  to  face  with  duty,  he 
plays  the  man,  and  preaches  repentance  to  an  apparently 
apathetic  city.  The  result  surprises  him.  The  whole 
people  awake  to  righteousness  ;  and  the  doom  which  the 
Israelite  missionary  proclaimed  is  repealed.  Then,  with 
the  characteristic  self-seeking  of  such  spiritual  cowards  as 
Jonah  essentially  was,  he  is  offended  at  the  slight  he 
supposes  to  be  put  upon  himself,  and  thinks — or  says  he 
thinks — it  would  be  better  to  die  than  to  live.  And  now 
follows  the  lovely  parable  of  the  gourd,  which  expresses 
in  few  lines  the  greater  religion  that  was  coming  in  sight  : 
"  Thou  hast  had  pity  on  the  gourd,  for  the  which  thou 
hast  not  laboured,  neither  madest  it  grow  ;    which  came 


THE    MORAL   OF   JONAH^S   ROMANCE   193 

up  in  a  night,  and  perished  in  a  night.  And  should  not  I 
spare  Nineveh,  that  great  city,  wherein  are  more  than  six- 
score  thousand  persons  that  cannot  discern  between  their 
right  hand  and  their  left  hand  ;  and  also  much  cattle  ? " 
"  Doth  God  take  care  for  oxen  ? "  asks  St  Paul  in  one  of 
his  inferior  moods.  Well,  the  large-hearted  author  of 
Jonah  thought  he  did.  But  what  is  more  to  the  point, 
the  many,  the  mob,  the  ignorant  multitude  were  dear  to 
the  writer  because  they  were  human.  And  in  the  exalta- 
tion of  that  love  he  anticipated  the  socialism  of  three 
thousand  years  ahead. 

This  spiritual  mission  of  Israel  is  often  emphasised  in 
Isaiah.  No  doubt  Jesus  felt  it  in  that  sixty-first  chapter 
which  he  read  to  his  unsympathetic  fellow-townsmen  : 
"  Ye  shall  be  named  the  Priests  of  the  Lord  :  men  shall 
call  you  the  Ministers  of  our  God."  "  I  will  greatly 
rejoice  in  Jahweh,  my  soul  shall  be  joyful  in  my  God  ;  for 
he  hath  clothed  me  with  the  garments  of  salvation.  .  .  . 
For  as  the  earth  bringeth  forth  her  bud,  and  the  garden 
causeth  the  things  that  are  sown  in  it  to  spring  forth  ;  so 
Jahweh  God  will  cause  righteousness  and  praise  to  spring 
forth  before  all  nations."  It  is  difficult,  perhaps  impossible, 
for  us  to  think  ourselves  back  into  social  and  spiritual 
conditions  separated  from  us  by  nearly  three  thousand 
years.  But,  after  all,  there  is  a  fundamental  human 
nature  which  remains  pretty  much  the  same  in  all  ages  ; 
and  after  our  critics  have  severed  for  us  the  chaff  from 
the  wheat  in  the  bewildering  literature  of  those  days, 
there  remains  to  us  a  tolerably  clear  conception  of  a 
monotheism,  clearing  itself  by  force  of  world-wide  revolu- 
tions from  the  old  barbarous  henotheism,  and  beginning 
even  to  evolve  somewhat  premature  germs  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

13 


194  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

It  would  inordinately  increase  the  volume  of  this  work 
were  I  to  make  any  attempt  to  trace  the  varying  fate  of 
this  spiritual  monotheism  through  the  five  hundred  years 
which  elapsed  before  the  Christian  era.  During  those 
years  the  Old  Testament  Canon  was  completed.  But  it 
is  obvious  that  the  opinions  and  feelings  of  the  leaders  of 
Jewish  thought  exercised  much  more  influence  on  the 
book  than  the  book  did  upon  them.  If,  therefore, 
the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  and  the  Book  of  Sirach  were 
relegated  to  a  category  of  books  less  inspired  than  Esther 
and  Daniel,  this  was  certainly  not  owing  to  the  relative 
spiritual  values  of  the  books  themselves,  but  to  the 
prejudices  of  the  Sanhedrim  who  had  fallen  back  from  the 
comparatively  pure  monotheism  of  Jonah,  the  Isaiah 
literature  and  Jeremiah,  to  a  narrower  nationalism.  The 
short-lived  victories  of  the  Maccabees  naturally  fostered 
the  unfortunate  reaction.  The  vulgarity  of  this  reaction 
is  well  exhibited  by  the  "  Testaments  of  the  Twelve 
Patriarchs,"  a  document  of  the  first  century  b.c,  which 
Oxford  scholarship  has  recently  given  to  the  world  with 
an  improved  text  and  illuminating  notes.  From  these 
Testaments  it  is  clear  that  even  at  so  late  a  date  Jewish 
writers  felt  perfectly  free  to  deal  independently  with 
legends  already  embodied  in  the  Hebrew  Bible.  But  it 
is  of  more  importance  to  note  that  in  the  confessions  of 
the  patriarchs  on  their  deathbeds,  moral;  considerations 
had  a  much  more  important  place  than  in  the  old 
documents  which  record  their  doings.  Yet,  while  fully 
recognising  this,  we  cannot  blind  ourselves  to  the  fact  that 
the  Testaments  are  a  tissue  of  superstitious  maunderings, 
showing  no  appreciation  of  the  more  spiritual  religion  of  the 
Isaiah  period,  and  no  anticipation  whatever  of  the  "  Sun  of 
righteousness  "  about  to  rise  "  with  healing  in  his  wings." 


DEVELOPMENT   OF    OLD   TESTAMENT    195 

So  far  as  we  have  gone,  then,  it  would  appear  that  the 
religious  influence  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  in  course  of  its 
growth  was  simply  a  reflection  of  the  faith,  feeling,  and 
hopes  of  successive  generations  in  their  gradual  and 
devious  ascent  from  fetishism  to  monotheism  with  a 
vague  outlook  towards  something  higher.  The  writers 
of  the  Book  of  Jashar,  of  the  "  Wars  of  the  Lord,"  or  of 
the  documents  J  and  E  and  P,  did  not  so  much  form 
the  opinion  of  their  various  contemporaries,  they  rather 
reflected  it.  Viewed  with  the  dispassionate  impartiality 
of  the  Pantheist  who  knows  that  "  all  things  are  of  God," 
the  development  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  is  a 
specially  interesting  case  of  the  sectional  movements 
toward  a  higher  religion  in  Assyria,  Babylon,  India, 
Egypt,  later  in  Greece,  and  afterwards  in  Rome.^ 

But  the  evolution  of  Jewish  literature  and  opinion  is 
specially  interesting,  because  that  people,  as  commonly 
recognised,  had  an  unrivalled  genius  for  religion  ;  and 
probably  they  alone,  of  all  the  races  of  the  earth,  were 
capable  of  producing  a  Christ  or  a  Spinoza.  But  when 
it  is  said  that  the  Hebrew  Bible,  in  the  course  of  its 
growth,  was  simply  a  reflection  of  the  faith,  feeling,  and 
hopes  of  successive  generations  in  their  gradual  and 
devious  ascent  from  fetishism  to  monotheism,  it  must 
be  understood,  of  course,  that  this  reflection  afl^ected  for 
good  or  evil  each  new  age.  The  bewildering  results 
were  represented  by  the  complicated  compilations  of 
discordant  documents  which  ensued,  and  by  the  "  re- 
dactions "  and  interpolations  which  gave  the  world  at  last 

*  The  fantastic  orgies  of  insane  emperors,  and  the  degradation  of  the 
Plebs  after  the  murder  of  the  great  Julius,  when  his  work  was  not  half 
done,  should  not  blind  us  to  the  existence  of  cosmic  emotion  such  as  that 
of  Lucretius,  or  the  true,  though  weak,  wisdom  of  Seneca,  or  the  aspirations 
of  Marcus  Aurelius. 


196  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

the  most  amazing  and  interesting  collection  of  religious 
books  it  possesses.  Throughout  this  review  the  idea  of 
what  is  vaguely  termed  supernaturalism  or  "  miracle  "  has 
been  ignored.  It  has  been  assumed  that  the  Universe  is 
one,  and  that  what  went  on  in  the  infinitesimal  little 
corner  of  it  called  Judaea  was  only  a  natural  modification 
of  the  processes  going  on  wherever  intellect,  self-love,  and 
self-sacrifice  strove  together  under  the  sense  of  an  infinite 
Beyond. 

It  is  now  time  to  turn  to  the  Christian  supplement  to 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  ;  for  Christianity  is  as  much  a 
natural  development  of  Jewish  monotheism  as  any  fruit 
is  of  its  preceding  bud  and  blossom.  In  both  cases, 
however,  there  is  a  good  deal  more  to  be  considered  than 
mere  rearrangements  and  developments  of  tissue  in  the 
vegetable  life  or  transmutation  of  ideas  and  feelings 
in  the  religious  life  ;  for  there  are  in  the  former 
possible  changes  in  the  soil  through  weather  or  culture, 
and  there  are  the  sweet  and  bitter  influences  of  the 
seasons.  In  fact,  there  is  the  whole  surrounding  medium. 
So  while  we  may  rightfully  regard  Christianity  as  the 
natural  outcome  of  the  later  Jewish  monotheism,  yet  we 
must  not  forget  the  special  influences  and  accidents  ^  of 
the  first  century's  religious  life. 

Of  the  ideas  then  prevalent,  that  of  a  suffering  Messiah, 
based  on  Isaiah  li.  and  other  scriptures,  was  most  potent. 
Of  the  accidents,  that  of  the  concurrence  of  visions 
and  legends  of  the  resurrection  was  the  most  decisive. 
The  latter  stories  are,  of  course,  to  be  estimated  by 
St  Paul's  account  of  his  own  vision  (i  Cor.  xv.  8),  which 
the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  passionately  insists  is  equal  in 

1  I.e.,  appearing  so,  because  of  our  "  inadequate  ideas  "  of  things  as  they 
are  in  the  infinite  Whole. 


ST   PAUL  197 

value  to  that  of  Peter  or  the  Twelve,  or  the  five  hundred 
brethren,  or  James.  Now,  those  who  most  sincerely 
take  him  at  his  word  must  clearly  recognise  that  the 
bodily  resurrection  was  one  of  the  accidents  due  to 
the  spiritually  electrical  atmosphere  of  the  time.  But 
then,  granting  the  idea  of  a  suffering  Messiah,  and  the 
accident  of  a  visionary  resurrection,  the  way  was  open  to 
such  an  expansion  of  spiritual  monotheism  as  had 
scarcely  been  dreamed  of  even  in  the  literature  of  Isaiah. 

Dealing  as  I  am  with  the  Bible,  it  is  not  within  my 
province  to  discuss  what  residual  elements  of  fact  there 
may  be  in  the  charming  and  tragic  story  of  the  Gospels. 
If  I  may  obtrude  a  personal  opinion,  I  believe  there  is 
much  more  fact  in  them  than  bloodless  criticism  allows. 
But  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  my  present  task,  which 
is  to  discuss  the  relations  of  the  Bible  to  religion.  Now, 
undoubtedly  the  first  New  Testament  documents  given 
to  the  world  were  some  of  St  Paul's  Epistles.-^  Happily 
for  me,  it  would  be  quite  irrelevant  to  this  part  of  my 
subject  to  attempt  any  distinction  between  the  authentic 
and  unauthentic  writings  of  the  apostle.  The  thirteen 
epistles,  excluding  that  to  the  Hebrews,  constitute  a 
Pauline  literature  ;  that  is,  they  give  clear  evidence  of  the 
impulse  of  one  mind  having  its  own  theory  of  Christianity, 

'  Some,  I  don't  know  which,  but  Galatians,  at  any  rate.  Internal 
evidence  is  sometimes  more  convincing  than  external,  and  I  cannot 
imagine  a  pious  and  reverent  forger — there  were  many  such  in  the 
second  and  third  centuries — writing  of  St  Paul  as  he  does  here  of  himself. 
The  personal  reminiscences  (chaps,  i.  and  ii.)  contradicting  Acts — the 
passion  of  which  he  becomes  ashamed — "  I  am  become  a  fool  in  glorying  ; 
ye  have  compelled  me  " — and  the  manifold  grief  of  a  teacher  and  leader 
who  has  been  supplanted,  seem  to  me  beyond  imitation.  I  am  afraid  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  must  be  surrendered ;  afraid  because,  granting  its 
premises,  it  is  such  a  masterly  piece  of  work.  But  I  hold  to  the  two  epistles 
to  Corinthians  and  also  to  Philemon.  However,  these  questions  are  now 
trivial. 


198  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

quite  apart  from  the  Gospel  tradition,  and  that  of  the 
churches  of  Judaea.  We  may  very  well,  therefore,  note 
the  Pauline  influence  on  religion,  apart  from  any  earlier 
preconception  or  later  conclusions  as  to  the  authorship 
of  particular  letters. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians 
(ii^.  17)  which  closely  approximates  to  Spinoza's  definition 
of  religion  :  "  Whatsoever  ye  do,  in  word  or  in  deed,  do 
all  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  giving  thanks  to  God 
and  the  Father  by  him."  "  I  include  under  religion," 
says  Spinoza,  as  already  quoted,  "  all  desires  and  acts 
of  which  we  are  the  cause  through  having  the  idea  or 
knowledge  of  God."  The  variations  and  the  obscurity 
of  the  Pauline  ideas  about  God  and  Christ  do  not  here 
aff^ect  the  similarity,  or  rather,  identity  of  thought  ;  for, 
plainly,  the  Pauline  idea  of  religion  was  the  habitual 
connection  of  our  desires  and  acts  of  which  we  are  the 
cause  ^  with  the  idea  or  knowledge  of  God.  But  that  is 
also  Spinoza's  definition  of  religion.  And  in  so  far  as  the 
Christian  writings  tended  to  promulgate  this  notion  of 
religion,  it  may  be  said,  subject  to  certain  reservations, 
of  which  the  nature  will  be  gradually  apparent,  that 
Christianity  was  a  potent  influence  in  the  age-long 
evolution  from  fetishism  to  Pantheism. 

But  one  of  the  reservations  above  mentioned  occurs  to 
us  at  once.  For  while  Spinoza's  definition  is  applicable 
to  every  form  of  religion,  from  the  worship  of  Mumbo 
Jumbo  to  the  philosopher's  own  transcendental  reverence 
for  the  All  in  all,  we  in  the  most  recent  stage  of  evolution 
find  it  difficult  or  impossible  to  conceive  how  the  crude, 

^  The  latter  words  were  intended  to  exclude  desires  and  acts  of  which 
the  true  self  is  not  the  cause,  but  which  are  incidental  to  the  "human 
bondage  "  which  Spinoza  treats  in  the  Fourth  Part  of  the  Ethics. 


GOSPEL   CHRISTIANITY  199 

childish,  or  cruel  notions  of  God,  prevalent  in  a  previous 
stage,  were  necessary  parts  of  one  harmonious  whole.  It 
may  be  true  that  Luther,  when  he  acquiesced  in  the 
massacre  of  the  peasants  maddened  by  suffering  and 
fanaticism,  and  that  Calvin,  when  he  approved  the  savage 
murder  of  Servetus,  "connected  his  desires  and  acts^  with 
the  knowledge  and  idea  of  God."  But  what  god  ? 
Certainly  not  the  God  of  Jesus,  nor  yet  the  God  of 
Spinoza.  We  have  to  ask,  then,  not  only  how  far  the 
Christian  Bible  awakened  in  men  a  sense  of  the  Divine 
Presence  as  distinct  from  the  fear  or  hope  arising  from 
fetishistic  charms,  but  also  how  far  that  Bible  tended  to 
refine  and  elevate  the  idea  of  God. 

Now,  here  we  cannot  help  noting  a  difference  between 
the  Gospels  and  the  Epistles,  while  at  the  same  time  we 
recognise  that  the  difference  is  not  one  of  opposition,  but 
only  the  difference  between  a  less  developed  and  a  more 
developed  Christianity.  For,  however  the  paradox  may 
be  explained,  it  is  clear  that  the  Synoptic  Gospels,^  though 
comparatively  late  in  their  present  form,  represent  in  the 
materials  out  of  which  they  have  been  compiled  an  earlier 
and  simpler  form  of  Christian  belief  and  practice  than 
that  which  we  have  in  the  Pauline  literature.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  argue  the  question,  but  my  conclusion  rests 
on  fifty  years'  careful  study  commenced  with  very 
strong  and  even  passionate  prepossessions  against  that 
conclusion.  I  am  bound,  therefore,  to  make  use  of  what 
I  consider  hard-won  truth  in  my  survey  of  the  relations 

1  Spinoza  carefully  adds,  "of  which  we  are  the  cause."  He  would 
probably  have  held  that  in  these  cases  it  was  panic  or  prejudice,  not  the 
true  self  of  Luther  or  Calvin,  that  was  the  cause.  But  these  refinements 
would  be  out  of  place  here. 

2  I  must  reiterate  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  does  not  count,  being  a  very 
late  first-century  or  early  second-century  romance. 


200  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

of  Man  and  the  Bible.  For  these  differences  between  the 
Gospels  and  the  Pauline  letters,  or  even  the  eirenicon  of 
the  Acts,  are  not  a  little  startling. 

In  the  Gospels  the  main  and  all-pervading  purpose  of 
Christ's  teaching  is  to  insist  on  the  fatherhood  of  God 
in  a  sense  never  before  conceived.  But  in  the  Pauline 
letters  and  Acts,  though  the  divine  fatherhood  is  retained, 
and  many  stimulating  lessons  of  morality  are  connected 
therewith,  yet  the  most  insistent  and  pressing  message  is 
the  need  of  personal  deliverance  from  impending  damna- 
tion. Now,  although  John  the  Baptist  seems  to  have 
had  much  to  say  about  "  the  wrath  to  come,"  and  though 
the  gentler  Jesus  also  at  times  presaged  some  terrible 
fate  for  the  lying  sanctimony  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,^ 
the  proportion  between  the  two  elements  of  Christian 
teaching  is  wholly  different  in  the  two  sets  of  documents. 
It  is  true  that  in  the  Synoptical  Gospels  we  have  the  germ 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  new  birth,  so  startingly  developed 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  But  that  germ  consists  simply  in 
the  insistence  on  the  need  of  a  childlike  nature  to 
appreciate  the  fatherhood  of  God  (Matt,  xviii.  3,  xix.  14). 
There  is  no  notion  here  of  any  supernatural  re-birth. 
But  the  latter  idea  would  very  easily  grow  out  of  it,  as 
in  fact  it  did.  Yet  the  original  Gospel  laid  no  emphasis 
whatever  on  this  "  conversion,"  except  as  preliminary  to 
an  appreciation  of  God's  fatherhood.  We  seek  in  vain 
through  all  literature  for  any  complete  parallel  to  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  on  the  fatherhood  of  God.     For  the 

1  The  teleological  discourses  of  Matt,  xxiv.,  xxv.,  and  parallels  were 
never  uttered  by  the  lips  that  said,  "  The  kingdom  of  God  cometh  not  with 
observation,"  or  which  spoke  the  parables  of  the  seed  and  the  leaven, 
indicating  a  natural,  imperceptible  growth,  and  not  a  catastrophe.  Those 
discourses  seem,  as  previously  said,  to  have  been  lifted  bodily  from  late 
Jewish  apocalypses. 


THE   DIVINE   FATHERHOOD  201 

Greek  notion  of  Zeus  as  "  Father  of  gods  and  men,"  if 
anything  more  than  a  poetic  figment,  is  only  a  reference 
to  the  origin  of  things.  But  this  dim  suggestion  is 
shadowy  indeed  compared  with  the  full-blooded  reality 
and  heart-touching  kindliness  of  affection  which  gave 
substance  and  force  to  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  concerning 
"the  Father."  Passages,  no  doubt,  might  be  quoted 
from  the  Greek  and  Roman  classics — even  from  the 
fierce  Juvenal  ^ — which  attribute  to  the  gods  a  parental, 
or  at  any  rate  a  benevolent  interest  in  human  affairs. 
But  to  compare  them  with  the  teaching  of  Jesus  concern- 
ing the  heavenly  Father  would  be  inept.  A  much  closer 
approach  is  made  by  the  Isaiah  literature.  "Doubtless 
thou  art  our  father,  though  Abraham  be  ignorant  of 
us,  and  Israel  acknowledge  us  not.  Thou,  O  Jahweh, 
art  our  father,  our  redeemer"  (Ixiii.  16).  But  how 
vague  is  this  notion  of  divine  fatherhood  compared  with 
the  Gospel  words  :  "  Love  your  enemies,  bless  them  that 
curse  you  .  .  .  that  ye  may  be  the  children  of  your 
Father  in  heaven  ;  for  he  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the 
evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  his  rain  on  the  just 
and  on  the  unjust."  It  may  be  forcibly  objected  that 
here  moral  questions  of  the  divine  government  are  raised 
to  which  the  lovable  teacher  does  not  seem  to  have  given 
a  thought.  But  that  does  not  in  the  least  interfere  with 
the  charming  conception  he  gives  us  of  supreme  love 
enthroned  as  the  Father  of  mankind.  For  observe,  when 
speaking  of  sunshine  and  rain,  Jesus  could  not  possibly 
have  been  thinking  of  Israel  only,  but  of  humanity  at 
large. 

Again,  take  the  words,  "  Your  Father  knoweth  what 
things  ye  have  need  of,  before  ye  ask  him  "  ;  or,  "  If  ye 

1  Sat.^  X.  I.  350. 


202  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

then,  being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your 
children,  how  much  more  shall  your  heavenly  Father 
give  his  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  him  ? "  True,  the 
Psalmist  came  even  nearer  than  Isaiah  to  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  when  the  sacred  lyrist  sang,  "  Like  as  a  father 
pitieth  his  children,  so  Jahweh  pitieth  them  that  fear 
him."  But  the  words  "  them  that  fear  him  "  suggest  a 
limitation  nowhere  apparent  in  the  words  of  Jesus.  On 
the  contrary,  he  showed  a  special  tenderness  toward 
sinners  who  were  not  supposed  to  fear  Jahweh.  And,  in 
fact,  he  is  reported  to  have  said  :  "  I  am  not  come  to  call 
the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  repentance."  Still  further,  if 
ever  his  loving  soul  was  liable  to  outbursts  of  volcanic 
wrath,  it  was  when  he  saw  in  the  religious  leaders  of  the 
day  a  sanctimonious  fear  of  Jahweh  unaccompanied  by  the 
love  of  man.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  invective  of 
Matt,  xxiii.  has  given  us  an  exaggerated  notion  of  the 
wickedness  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees.  But  the  one 
thing  wanting  in  them  in  the  eyes  of  Jesus  was  a  sense 
of  the  fatherhood  of  God  as  he  realised  it  ;  and  this  he 
could  not  condone.  Moreover,  although  during  the 
brief  months  of  an  undeveloped  work  he  appeared  to 
feel  that  his  immediate  mission  was  limited  to  Galilee 
and  Judaea,  yet  his  bearing  toward  the  Samaritans,  toward 
the  Syro-Phoenician  woman,  and  toward  the  Roman 
centurion,  seem  to  imply  a  suspicion,  or  even  conviction, 
that  amongst  the  uncovenanted  peoples  there  was  to  be 
found  an  unsophisticated  human  nature  more  susceptible 
to  the  sense  of  divine  sonship  than  were  the  supposed 
children  of  the  Kingdom. 

The  teaching  of  Jesus,  then,  consisted  simply  in  the 
proclamation  of  a  divine  Father,  and  insistence  on  rever- 
sion to  a  childlike  spirit  as  a  condition  of  the  reception  of 


THE   HEART   OF   THE   CHILD  203 

that  truth.  He  did,  undoubtedly,  likewise  expect  a 
"kingdom  of  God"  on  earth  equivalent  to  a  republic 
of  Man  under  the  sway  of  divine  love.  He  also  taught 
a  supremely  beautiful  morality  as  essential  to  that  perfect 
social  state.  But  all  rose  out  of,  and  centred  in,  his 
teaching  of  the  fatherhood  of  God.  That  this  fatherhood 
was  intensely  anthropomorphic,  and  therefore  impossible 
to  any  permanent  and  universal  religion,  need  not  here 
concern  us  ;  because  we  are  engaged  in  an  examination 
not  of  ultimate  truth,  but  only  of  the  historic  relations  of 
the  Bible  and  Man.  Now,  it  has  been  already  suggested 
on  a  previous  page  that  the  Acts  and  the  epistolary 
literature  of  Christianity  differ  very  much  in  tone. 
Indeed,  this  conspicuous  concentration  of  all  thought 
on  the  divine  fatherhood  and  human  sonship  is  in  that 
epistolary  literature  so  largely  modified,  that  we  seem 
almost  to  be  introduced  to  a  new  religion.  I  have  said 
that  the  difference  is  not  one  of  opposition  but  of  develop- 
ment. It  is,  however,  one  of  those  incidents  of  evolution 
which  we  could  well  wish  had  happened  otherwise.  But 
it  could  not  be.  The  charming  doctrine  of  Jesus  concern- 
ing a  divine  fatherhood  which  needed  only  a  childlike 
heart  to  receive  it,  had  no  chance  of  survival  outside  the 
little  band  of  immediate  adherents  who  were  fascinated 
by  his  presence  and  his  living  words. 

But  in  the  world  which  St  Paul  and  his  fellow-labourers 
had  to  confront,  it  was  not  so  much  the  fatherhood  of 
God  as  the  immortality  of  the  soul  in  blessedness  or 
misery  that  was  becoming  the  question  of  intensest 
interest.  It  would  require  altogether  too  long  a  digres- 
sion to  discuss  the  causes  which  in  the  early  centuries  of 
the  Christian  era  gave  to  this  question  a  disproportion- 
ate importance.     But  a  word  or  two  must  necessarily  be 


204  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

said.  Amongst  all  the  vagaries  of  human  feeling,  perhaps 
nothing  is  at  once  more  curious  and  pathetic  than  the 
various  attitudes  of  different  races  toward  speculations  on 
immortality.  The  Egyptians  had  such  a  strenuous 
conviction  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body — if  it  were  only 
properly  preserved — that  they  spent  the  acquired  wealth 
of  a  lifetime  on  fortress  tombs.  Yet  the  Israelites,  who 
are  supposed  to  have  lived  some  four  hundred  years 
under  their  immediate  influence,  had  no  notion  of 
immortality  except  the  shadowy  Sheol  which  corresponded 
to  the  heathen  Hades  ;  and  neither  represented  anything 
but  a  negation — the  impossibility  of  conceiving  annihila- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  countless  millions  of  Oriental 
races  made  the  chief  ends  of  religion  to  be  a  conquest 
over  that  very  difficulty  of  conceiving  annihilation,  and 
the  total  and  utter  suppression  of  personality.^  Yet,  in 
striking  contrast  to  this  Oriental  craving  for  annihilation, 
we  have  the  enthusiasm  of  the  "  Mysteries,"  Eleusinian 
and  others,  which  from  early  times  gathered  together  little 
churches — for  so  we  may  call  them — of  men  who  were 
consumed  with  a  desire  to  "  lay  hold  on  eternal  life."  ^ 

At  the  time  of  the  Christian  era  these  "  Mysteries " 
were  taking  on  a  new  character.  For,  whereas  in  the 
earlier  days  of  the  Eleusinian  and  other  Mysteries  the 
thoughts  of  the  "  Mystae  "  were  occupied  solely  with  the 
craving    for   personal   immortality,    there   was  generated 

^  On  this  point  Pali  scholars  are  not  agreed,  but  Professor  T.  W.  Rhys 
Davids  holds  that  the  notion  of  a  "  soul "  is  foreign  to  true  Buddhism. 
"  Karma"  is  a  very  different  thing.  The  ultimate  aspiration  of  the  devout 
Buddhist  is  "the  going  out"  of  this  "  Karma."  What  is  then  left— if  any- 
thing— certainly  would  not  answer  to  our  idea  of  immortality.  This  latter 
is  my  own  conclusion,  and  I  do  not  pretend  here  to  claim  the  authority  of 
my  friend  Professor  Rhys  Davids. 

2  See  passim,  Das  antike  Mysterienwesen  in  seinem  Einfiuss  auf  das 
Chrisientum,  von  Gustav  Aurich,  Gottingen,  1894. 


IMMORTALITY 


205 


now  a  sort  of  pious  mysticism,  not  at  all  totally  alien  to 
that  of  the  later  Middle  Ages.  Thus  it  was  not  only  a 
continuance  of  personal  life  that  was  desired,  but  a  life  in 
communion  with  a  vaguely  conceived  divine  Being.  The 
forms  in  which  this  desire  expressed  itself  were  imperfect 
and  rude,  often  corrupted  by  the  arts  of  magic.  But  the 
desire  was  there,  and  in  all  the  circles  scattered  through- 
out Asia  Minor,  Greece,  and  Italy,  where  this  desire  had 
drawn  devotees  together,  material  was  provided  as 
susceptible  to  the  Christian  mission  as  dry  tinder  to  fire. 
There  is  probably  the  germ  of  such  a  spiritual  aspiration 
to  be  found  in  a  well-known  fragment  of  Pindar :  "  Blessed 
is  he  who  after  vision  of  those  (mysteries)  sinks  beneath 
the  hollow  earth.  He  knows  indeed  the  end  of  life  ;  but 
he  knows  (also)  the  God-given  beginning."  ^  From  the 
idea  of  the  God-given  beginning  of  a  higher  life  to  the 
idea  of  a  life  in  God  is  not  a  great  step.  Yet  it  seems 
to  have  required  several  centuries  to  make  the  latter  idea 
general  amongst  the  circles  of  the  "  Mystae."  But  that 
this  step  had  been  accomplished  about  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  era,  before  the  Gospel  had  reached  Greece 
or  Italy,  is,  I  think,  fairly  established  by  Gustav  Aurich  in 
his  work  on  the  ancient  Mysteries. 

Now,  if  this  be  so,  it  is  obvious  that  this  state  of  things 
offered  facilities  of  which  Gibbon  never  dreamed  for  the 
rapid  spread  of  Christianity.  It  is  not  in  the  least 
necessary  to  suppose,  and  for  myself  I  do  not  believe,  that 

KolXav  claiv  tVb  x^<^»'« 

otS^v  jxZv  Pi6rov  reAeuTckv 

otSev  5e  5i6(rBoTov  dpx«''.'' 
Fragment  102  in  Donaldson's  Pindar.     The  arrangement  of  the  lines 
is  Donaldson's,  and  also  the  reading  fii6Tov,  as  equivalent  to  fiiov.     The 
sense,  apparently,  is  that  a  death  sanctified  by  the  Mysteries  is  the  begin- 
ning of  immortal  life. 


2o6  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

the  primitive  Christian  rites  were  borrowed  from  these 
Mysteries.  On  the  contrary,  though  purification  and 
baptism  and  a  sacramental  meal  each  had  a  place  in  the 
Mysteries,  I  cannot  doubt  that  these  rites  among  Christians 
all  had  a  Jewish  origin.  But  surely  the  existence  of  a 
considerable  number  of  people  eagerly  longing  for  an 
assurance  of  personal  immortality,  and  for  communion 
with  God,^  must  have  been  very  favourable  to  the  success 
of  St  Paul  and  his  colleagues.  For  it  was  something 
entirely  new,  and  must  to  the  prevalent  mood  have  been 
startlingly  impressive  to  hear  a  man  say,  "  You  want 
assurance  of  immortality  ?  Well,  I  have  seen  my  Lord 
and  Saviour  after  he  rose  from  the  dead  !  "  ^  Criticism  of 
such  visions  did  not  naturally  occur  to  moods  of  ecstasy. 
And  if  he  went  on  to  teach,  as  the  later  Pauline  literature 
would  suggest,  that  the  elect  who  believed  in  the  risen 
Saviour  became  parts  of  his  body — '^  the  fulness  of  him 
who  filleth  all  in  all " — nothing  could  be  better  adapted  to 
meet  their  spiritual  desire  for  union  with  God.  The  solid 
fact  of  the  Resurrection — for  so  they  regarded  it — was 
the  firm  foundation  which  not  only  sustained  their  hope 
of  immortality,  but  also  confirmed  their  assurance  of 
ultimate  union  with  God. 

This  digression  in  not  useless  if  it  prepares  us  to 
understand  the  great  difference  between  the  teaching  of 
the  epistolary  literature  and  that  of  the  Gospels.^     The 


1  The  polytheism  of  the  mob  may  be  left  out  of  consideration.  What- 
ever the  cultured  "Mystae"  thought  about  Olympus,  they  were  sure  that 
all  partial  divine  manifestations  merged  ultimately  in  the  Infinite  Life. 

2  That  this  was  often  his  argument  is  clear  enough  from  i  Cor.  xv. 

^  It  may  be  necessary  to  reiterate  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  does  not  count. 
Unique  as  a  work  of  literature,  it  belongs  rather  to  the  age  of  the  latest 
Epistles  than  of  the  Synoptics.  And  yet  it  does  not  fit  in  with  the  former 
either.     It  is  in  a  position  of  "splendid  isolation." 


.     THE   GALILiEAN   GOSPEL  207 

Epistle  to  the  Romans,  though  to  me  its  Pauline  author- 
ship is  more  than  doubtful,  does,  at  any  rate,  give  us  an 
elaborate  account  of  the  fully  developed  Pauline  doctrine 
of  salvation.  Not  that  it  represents  the  final  stage  of 
that  doctrine.  This  must  be  sought  rather  in  the 
Epistles  to  the  Ephesians  and  Colossians.  I  am  not 
however,  dealing  with  the  history  of  doctrine,  but  only 
preparing  to  show  how  the  later  Christian  Scriptures 
aiFected  religion.  Now,  the  teaching  of  the  Synoptic 
Gospels  is  that  to  be  saved — whether  in  this  world  or 
the  next — a  sinner  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  repent,  and, 
with  the  simplicity  of  a  little  child,  yield  to  the 
fatherhood  of  God.^  The  fact  of  moral  salvation  by 
faith  may  indeed  be  at  the  back  of  the  Synoptic  teaching, 
but  only  in  the  sense  that  all  conversion  from  worse 
to  better  involves  loyalty  to  some  hitherto  unknown  or 
neglected  best.  And  this  is  a  principle  applicable  to  all 
religions  from  animism  to  Pantheism.  The  passages 
which  mar  this  simplicity  of  the  original  Galilean  gospel 
are  obviously  intrusions  in  the  course  of  the  perilous 
vicissitudes  of  growth  and  compilation  to  which  the 
earliest  traditions  were  exposed.  For  if  the  traditions 
which  give  us  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or  even  the 
invective  against  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  may  be 
regarded  as  the  essence  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  then 
all  allusions  to  the  "  ransom  "  of  sinners  by  his  death 
or  to  salvation  from  hell  by  personal  faith  in  a  mysterious 
sacrifice,  or  to  a  judgment  day  in  which  the  meek  and 
lowly  Jesus  is  to  sit  as  arbiter  of  all  human  destiny,  are 

1  See  Matt,  xviii.  3,  xix.  14  ;  Luke  xviii.  13,  14,  xix.  8,  etc.  etc.  The 
succeeding  context  of  this  last,  "  the  Son  of  Man  is  come,"  etc.,  is  just 
one  of  many  Gospel  passages  which  are  forced  into  an  unnatural  meaning 
to  comply  with  the  "plan  of  salvation"  in  the  Epistles. 


2o8  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

so  utterly  incongruous,  that  they  can  only  be  explained 
as  foreign  elements  absorbed  in  the  course  of  the 
evolution  of  Church  thought. 

This,  however,  we  may  say  with  confidence,  that  the 
original  Galilean  doctrine  of  renewal  by  a  return  to 
childlike  simplicity  and  acceptance  of  the  fatherhood  of 
God,  continued  to  be  through  all  Christian  ages  far  the 
most  precious  and  inspiring  element  in  the  Christian 
Scriptures.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is  permanent ;  for 
"  when  that  which  is  perfect  is  come,  then  that  which  is 
in  part  shall  be  done  away."  But  this  soul  of  the  religion 
has  at  any  rate  preserved  Christianity  from  a  universal 
degeneration  into  an  irrational  system  of  Graeco-Judaic 
theosophy  little  better  than  Manichaeism.  For  in  all 
ages  of  Papal,  Episcopal,  Presbyterian,  Lutheran,  and 
Calvinistic  corruption,  there  have  always  been  left  the 
proverbial  seven  thousand  who  have  not  bowed  the  knee 
to  these  Baals,  but  have  felt  that  self-surrender  with  the 
acceptance  of  the  divine  fatherhood  and  human  brother- 
hood is  worth  more  than  all  decrees  of  councils  and  all 
creeds.  However,  this  obscure  persistence  of  the  original 
Gospel  was  far  from  being  influential  enough  to  neutralise 
the  dangerous  and  even  evil  effects  of  the  later  Christian 
Scriptures  on  the  religion  of  the  world. 

Could  we  allow  ourselves  to  dwell  exclusively  on  the 
exquisite  moral  episodes  in  the  Pauline  literature,  such, 
for  instance,  as  Rom.  xii.,  i  Cor.  xiii..  Gal.  v.  16-26, 
Eph.  iv.  20-32,  we  should  be  utterly  unable  to  account 
for  the  "bitterness  and  wrath  and  anger  and  clamour 
and  evil-speaking"  which  blacken  the  pages  of  Church 
history.  But  when  we  find  belief  in  supernatural  wonders 
substituted  for  the  childlike  attitude  toward  the  Eternal 
Father,  which  was  all  that  Jesus  asked,  we  detect  at  once 


THE   CURSE   OF   CREEDS  209 

the  germ  out  of  which  grew  bigotry,  intolerance, 
ecclesiastical  tyranny,  and  cruelty.  "If  thou  belie  vest 
with  all  thine  heart,  thou  mayest "  is  the  traditional 
answer  of  Philip  the  Evangelist  to  the  Ethiopian  eunuch's 
request  to  be  baptized.  And  the  answer  of  the  Ethiopian 
was  :  "  I  beHeve  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God  " — 
a  very  simple  creed  ;  and  well  would  it  have  been  for 
the  Church  and  the  world  if  that  creed  had  never  been 
enlarged.  But  still,  what  in  the  nature  of  things  had 
it  to  do  with  moral  regeneration  ?  As  the  reputed 
Epistle  of  James  says  :  "  The  devils  also  believe  and 
tremble."  Accidentally  perhaps,  and  by  the  power  of 
association,  such  a  belief  might  concentrate  attention  on 
the  moral  ideal  incarnate  in  Jesus.  But  the  story  of  the 
believing  Church,  as  well  as  James's  devils,  proves 
beyond  any  possible  contradiction  that  the  effect  was 
only  accidental  and  indirect — achieved  in  one  believer, 
and  totally  wanting  in  ninety-nine.  In  fact,  this  arbitrary 
and  unfortunate  connection  of  salvation  with  belief  in 
alleged  supernatural  wonders,  poisoned,  close  to  the 
spring,  the  living  water  of  the  Christ's  limpid  truth, 
and  infected  all  following  ages  down  to  the  present 
time  with  the  curse  of  metaphysical  or  theosophical 
creeds. 

Notwithstanding  what  has  been  said  above  about  the 
unhistorical  character  of  much  in  the  Synoptic  records,  I 
am  quite  prepared  to  admit  that  Jesus  himself  demanded 
faith,  and  insisted  on  its  moral  omnipotence.  But  the 
faith  that  he  demanded  was  faith  in  God  the  Father, 
and  not  belief  in  any  supernatural  wonder.  It  is  probable 
that  Jesus  said,  in  the  figurative  style  natural  to  Oriental 
teachers  :  "  If  ye  have  faith,  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed, 
ye  shall  say  unto  this  mountain.  Remove  hence  to  yonder 

14 


2IO  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

place  ;  and  it  shall  remove,  and  nothing  shall  be  impossible 
unto  you."  But  what  he  meant  by  this  faith  was  loyalty 
to  the  Father  and  the  divine  order,  and  certainly  not  any 
belief  in  supernatural  wonders  or  doctrines.^  Now,  this 
is  precisely  the  moral  quality  which  is  always  predominant 
in  those  who  achieve  apparently  impossible  victories  over 
falsehood  and  wrong.  "  Out  of  weakness  they  were 
made  strong,  waxed  valiant  in  fight,  turned  to  flight  the 
armies  of  the  aliens,"  because  the  thing  they  opposed  was 
intolerable  to  their  loyalty  to  divine  order,  whether  in 
the  domain  of  morals  or  of  thought.  Thus  it  was  surely 
not  so  much  WyclifFe's  belief  in  a  book  as  his  loyalty 
to  God  which  made  a  conventional,  mercenary,  and  cruel 
church  unbearable.  Piers  Plowman,  too,  was  well  skilled 
in  the  Scriptures  ;  but  his  quotations  from  them  suggest 
that  he  valued  them  mainly  because  they  abounded  in 
passages  that  confirmed  his  loyalty  to  God  as  above  both 
Pope  and  Church.  For  all  passages — of  which  there  are 
many — exalting  the  priest  are  ignored,  and  only  those 
selected  which  echoed  his  loyalty  to  his  moral  ideal.  If 
the  Bible  had  been  confined  to  the  prescriptions  of  ritual 
which  form  so  considerable  a  part  of  the  Pentateuch,  or  to 
the  Rabbinical  discussions  which  figure  so  largely  in  the 
Epistles,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  Piers  Plowman 
as  caring  for  it,  though  that  would  not  have  sealed  his 

^  "And  he  sighed  deeply  in  his  spirit  and  saith,  Why  doth  this  genera- 
tion seek  after  a  sign  ?  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  There  shall  no  sign  be  given 
unto  this  generation"  (Mark  viii.  12).  It  seems  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  as  this  is  the  simplest,  so  it  is  the  original  form  of  the  traditional 
utterance.  But  even  if  we  allow  that,  according  to  two  passages  in 
Matthew,  the  sign  of  the  prophet  Jonas  was  mentioned,  it  would  appear 
from  a  comparison  of  the  latter  passages  that  the  preaching  of  Jonah 
(Matt.  xii.  41)  was  meant,  and  not  his  parabolic  abode  "in  the  whale's 
belly,"  which  is  totally  incongruous  with  the  context  and  obviously  an 
addition  of  later  days. 


KEPLER^S   FAITH  211 

lips  ;  for  certainly  to  Langland  the  Word  of  God  was 
within  and  not  without. 

Or,  if  we  turn  to  more  secular  illustrations,  Kepler 
dared  to  be  sure  that  truth  would  conquer  falsehood 
because  "  he  was  strong  in  faith,  giving  glory  to  God." 
That  is,  he  knew  that  the  order  of  the  world  must 
prevail  against  the  "  little  systems  "  of  the  day  or  age. 
"  Eight  months  ago  I  saw  the  first  gleam  of  light,"  said 
he  ;  "for  three  months  I  have  seen  the  dawn  ;  and  now 
for  a  few  days  I  have  seen  the  sun  in  full  vision.  I 
surrender  myself  to  my  inspiration.  ...  I  have  written 
my  book.  It  will  be  read  :  whether  in  the  present  age 
or  by  posterity  matters  little.  It  can  wait  for  its  readers. 
Has  not  God  waited  six  thousand  years  for  one  to 
contemplate  his  works  ? "  A  daring  and  yet  humble 
utterance — teaching  us  at  once  the  bravery  of  faith  and 
the  modesty  of  patience.  There  is  in  those  words  the 
ring  of  a  true  spiritual  loyalty,  which  is  deeper  than  all 
creeds.  And  perhaps  the  ecstasy  of  Kepler's  faith  at  such 
a  moment,  when  the  "  intellectual  love  of  God "  over- 
mastered all  other  feeling,  enables  us  better  than  any 
theological  comment  to  spiritualise  the  Psalmist's  words  : 
"Thou  shall  make  them  to  drink  of  the  river  of  thy 
pleasures."  ^ 

Now,  if  the  pages  of  Church  history  are,  for  the 
most  part,  painful  reading,  it  is  largely  because  the 
teaching    of    the    earliest    Gospel    tradition    concerning 

^  I  have  here  adapted  some  sentences  from  an  earlier  work  of  mine 
on  Heroes  and  Martyrs  of  Science^  published  twenty-two  years  ago.  As 
it  is  long  dead  and  buried,  the  self-plagiarism  may  be  allowed.  One 
always  feels  that  the  use  of  the  name  "  God "  by  men  like  Kepler  had  a 
prophetic  significance  far  outranging  the  petty  theologies  of  the  time. 
The  usage  needs  Spinoza's  philosophy — not  necessarily  in  detail,  but 
certainly  in  principle — to  justify  it. 


212  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

religion  was  almost  totally  superseded  by  that  of  the 
Epistles.  This  is  not  at  all  inconsistent  with  what  has 
been  previously  said  as  to  the  role  of  St  Paul  in  saving 
Christianity  from  extinction.  Any  near  approximation 
to  an  ideal  is  impracticable  on  any  large  scale  in  every 
age.  But  as  "  a  mixture  of  a  lie  doth  often  give  pleasure," 
so  the  same  expedient  may  preserve  truth  for  future 
recognition.  As  Browning  says  of  the  artificer  in  too 
pure  gold  : 

"he  mingles  gold 
With  gold's  alloy,  and,  duly  tempering  both, 
Effects  a  manageable  mass^  then  works  ; 
But  his  work  ended,  once  the  thing  a  ring, — 
Oh,  there's  repristination  !     Just  a  spirt 
Of  the  proper  fiery  acid  o'er  its  face  ; 
While,  self-sufficient  now,  the  shape  remains, 
The  rondure  brave,  the  lilied  loveliness. 
Gold,  as  it  was,  is,  shall  be  evermore." 

This  "  spirt  of  fiery  acid  "  may  figure  the  modern  critical 
spirit,  at  once  reverent  and  searchingly  true.  But  we 
are  speaking  here  of  times  when  such  a  spirit  was  incon- 
ceivable. In  those  days,  instead  of  the  reversion  to  the 
child's  heart,  with  a  receptivity  to  the  fatherhood  such 
as  would  refer  every  desire  or  act  to  the  idea  of  God,  we 
have  the  torments  of  remorse,  the  discord  of  the  higher 
and  lower  self,  the  terror  of  judgment,  the  agonising 
effort  to  understand  prophetic  words  concerning  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  and  at  last  a  mystic  act  of  faith,  at  first 
trembling  and  uncertain,  but  afterwards,  often,  triumph- 
ant, by  which  the  sinner  casts  all  his  burden  of  guilt  upon 
an  innocent  victim,  and,  being  thus  united  to  the  dying 
Christ,  is  made  partaker  of  his  resurrection,  and  assured 
of  eternal  life.     Such  a  doctrine  opened  the  way  to  end- 


EVILS  WROUGHT  BY  PAULINE  THEOLOGY  2 1 3 

less  controversies.  The  nature  of  repentance,  the  degree 
of  satisfactory  sorrow  for  sin,  the  various  steps  of  prepara- 
tion for  baptism,  the  beliefs  to  be  held  as  to  the  nature 
of  the  Redeemer,  the  mode  in  which  his  death  saved  the 
sinner,  were  all  points  pregnant  with  inevitable  disputes. 
And  as  time  went  on  each  bigot  became  convinced  that 
he  alone  held  saving  truth. 

The  evil  effects  of  this  supersession  of  the  Gospels  by 
the  Epistles  were  seen,  as  suggested  above,  in  two  forms 
of  corruption,  which,  though  always  to  a  certain  degree 
co-existent,  were  manifested  in  very  different  proportions 
in  the  earlier  and  later  Christian  centuries.  For  while 
malignant  strife  about  forms  of  intellectual  or  rather  of 
superstitious  belief  predominated  in  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries,  strife,  often  ending  in  unbrotherly  and  unholy 
bloodshed,  the  Reformation,  though  far  from  allaying 
this  insane  arrogance,  added  a  new  terror  in  the  promin- 
ence it  gave  to  morbid  self-introspection  in  the  search 
for  inward  signs  that  should  make  the  "professing 
Christian's "  "  calling  and  election  sure."  And  these 
inward  signs  were  to  be  found  in  compliance  of  the 
feelings  with  innumerable  texts,  each  of  which,  without 
any  consideration  of  its  historical  connection,  was  con- 
sidered a  touchstone  of  the  saved  state  of  the  soul. 
Carlyle,  in  his  comments  on  Oliver  Cromwell's  letter  to 
Mrs  St  John,  has  no  doubt  touched  with  imaginative 
sympathy  on  the  great  Englishman's  spiritual  troubles. 
And  it  is  very  true  that  the  "  dwelling  in  Meshec  "  and 
in  Kedar  represent  unsatisfied  longings  for  a  higher  life, 
apparently  unattainable,  when  "  the  eternal  pole-star  had 
gone  out,  veiled  itself  in  black  clouds."  But  we  may 
still  be  unable  now  to  rejoice  in  the  biblical  influences 
which    twisted    those    unsatisfied    longings     into     such 


214  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

fantastic  forms.  It  is  needless  to  multiply  examples. 
The  fierce  spiritual  struggles  of  Bunyan's  early  life,  as 
depicted  in  his  Grace  Abounding  to  the  Chiej  of  Sinners^  are 
distinguished  only  by  the  graphic  power  of  genius  from 
the  story  of  a  thousand  humbler  pilgrims  who  "  strove 
to  enter  in." 

Enough  ;  in  estimating  the  relations  of  the  Bible  and 
religion,  while  we  may  gladly  acknowledge  that  the 
oldest  Scriptures  show  traces  of  the  gradual  elevation  of 
a  tribal  henotheism  into  a  universal  monotheism  with  a 
further  outlook  ;  and  while  we  fully  recognise  the  charm- 
ing transfiguration  effected  by  Jesus  of  this  intellectual 
monotheism  into  a  religion  of  the  heart,  consisting  in 
childlike  devotion  to  the  heavenly  Father  ;  nay,  while 
we  still  further  recognise  the  many  gleams  of  noble 
morality  which  brighten  the  New  Testament, — we  cannot 
help  concluding  that  the  Pauline  Christianity  was,  to  a 
large  extent,  a  supersession  of  religion  by  theology.  No 
doubt  religion  in  its  largest  sense  includes  every  form  of 
spiritual  excitement,  from  the  superstitious  fears  associated 
with  animism  or  fetishism,  to  the  "  cosmic  emotion  "  of 
Pantheism.  But,  in  its  noblest  form,  which  it  takes  as  the 
association  of  every  good  impulse  and  aspiration  with  the 
idea  of  God,  it  was  not  helped  but  retarded,  both  by  the 
Pauline  doctrine  of  propitiation  and  by  the  Nicene  Creed. 

Finally,  so  far  as  the  relations  of  the  Bible  and  religion 
are  concerned,  it  must  be  reiterated  that,  as  contrasted 
with  the  vastness  of  humanity  contemplated  as  a  whole, 
and  inclusive  of  its  first  humble  and  obscure  beginnings, 
the  extent  of  the  influence  of  the  Hebrew  and  Christian 
Scriptures  has  been  almost  infinitesimal.  For  though  it 
has  not  yet  been  settled  in  the  courts  of  science  whether 
man  first  appeared  in  the  last  Tertiary  or  early  Quaternary 


AREA  OF  ALLEGED  REVELATION  215 

geological  age,  it  is  generally  agreed  that  he  has  been 
lord  of  the  earth  for  a  period  to  be  measured  by  centuries 
of  millenniums  rather  than  by  thousands  of  years.  Yet 
no  one,  however  conservative  in  such  things,  would  date 
the  first  written  document  of  Hebrew  religion  earlier 
than  the  supposed  commission  of  Moses,  or,  say  some 
1450  years  before  the  Christian  era.^  Therefore,  some 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  had  elapsed,  and  the 
human  race  had  spread  and  multiplied  over  the  whole 
globe,  before  the  faintest  scintilla  of  revelation  had  been 
recorded  in  Bible  form.  There  are  surely  few  left,  at 
least  among  educated  people,  who  would  attempt  to 
qualify  or  minimise  this  glaring  fact  by  insisting  on  the 
Hebrew  folklore  about  the  preaching  of  Noah,  or  the 
pious  testimonies  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob.  But, 
even  if  this  almost  inconceivable  simplicity  should  still 
survive,  it  would  not  much  mend  matters.  For  the 
origin  of  man  is  confessedly  remote,  and  it  would  surely 
betray  a  lack  of  all  sense  of  proportion  to  treat  the 
patriarchal  ministrations  as  a  great  factor  in  a  world  that 
had  been  peopled  by  innumerable  races  of  men  ages 
before  Hebrew  folklore  or  even  its  Chaldean  matrix  had 
begun  to  take  form. 

If  we  take  the  human  race  as  a  whole  from  its 
beginnings  until  now,  the  above  consideration  alone  is 
enough  to  remind  us  that  an  enormous  and  over- 
whelming majority  of  our  race  not  only  never  came  under 
the  influence  of  the  Bible,  but  lived  and  died  before  its 
first  fragments  were  written.  But,  if  anyone  should  say 
that  this  does  not  much  matter,  because  an  unknown  but 
enormous  proportion  of  those  perished  generations  were, 

1  The  date  is  absolutely  unsustainable,  but  for  my  present  point  I  wish 
to  admit  for  a  moment  the  old  assumption. 


2i6  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

according  to  the  theory  of  evolution,  little  better  than 
beasts — an  assumption  which  I  should  regard  as  a  gross 
exaggeration — at  any  rate  it  is  certain  that  recent  research 
has  shown  that  civilisation  of  a  somewhat  advanced  order, 
and  involving  much  moral  and  intellectual  activity,  existed 
amongst  the  Sumerians,  as  also  in  Egypt  and  Mesopotamia, 
at  least  six  thousand  or  seven  thousand  years  before  our 
era.  But  by  those  who  try  to  force  facts  into  the  moulds 
of  Jewish  tradition,  it  is  often  forgotten  that  the  existence 
of  somewhat  complicated  civilisations  eight  thousand  years 
ago  necessarily  involves  a  preceding  period  of  development, 
which  can  hardly  have  been  less,  and  much  more  probably 
was  far  longer.  For  the  first  civiHsation  we  can  recognise 
is  like  an  iceberg,  at  least  in  this,  that  its  concealed  bases 
are  enormously  greater  than  the  part  which  rises  into  sight. 
Think,  then,  of  all  the  soul-life  that  is  not  only  implied 
but  revealed  in  the  remains  of  empires  flourishing  before, 
as  we  are  told,  Abraham  left  Ur.  The  Egyptian  "  Book 
of  the  Dead,"  as  given  us  by  scholars,  may  be  in  many 
respects  grotesque  to  us.  But  its  successive  recensions 
go  back  to  ages  long  prior  to  the  Mosaic  epoch,  and 
whatever  its  absurdities,  at  least  it  shows  that  many 
generations  of  Egyptians  were  anxiously  occupied  with 
thoughts  of  "  righteousness,  temperance,  and  judgment  to 
come."  Yet  the  Mosaic  revelation  was  reserved  for  a 
small  and  then  obscure  tribe  who,  though  alleged  to  have 
been  resident  as  serfs  in  Egypt  for  several  generations, 
had,  strangely  enough,  entirely  failed  to  appreciate 
Egyptian  interest  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  Surely, 
if  there  were  any  tangible  truth  in  the  doctrine  of  personal 
divine  intervention  for  the  deliverance  of  those  "  who 
through  fear  of  death  were  all  their  lifetime  subject  to 
bondage,"    the    Egyptians,    in    their    pathetic,    though 


REVELATIONS   OUTSIDE   THE   BIBLE  217 

blundering  aspirations,  had  a  fair  claim  to  be  among  the 
first  objects  of  that  intervention.  But  so  far  was  such  a 
claim  from  being  recognised,  that  even  the  voice  from 
Sinai,  addressed  to  their  escaped  serfs,  absolutely  ignored 
spiritual  aspirations  which  those  serfs,  after  centuries  of 
later  development,  at  last  began  to  share. 

To  mutiply  such  illustrations  is  needless.  The  ancient 
Sumerian  literature,  the  Babylonian  inscriptions,  and 
especially  the  Laws  of  Hammurabi,  a  thousand  years 
older  than  the  Mosaic  epoch,  all  go  to  show  that  there 
was  a  moral  and  spiritual  life  emerging  with  many  a 
struggle  amongst  those  Eastern  races,  which,  if  it  had 
any  relation  at  all  to  Bible  beginnings,  was  rather  that  of 
teacher,  example,  and  inspiration  than  that  of  recipient. 
When  to  all  this  we  add  the  primal  religious  aspirations 
of  the  Aryan  invaders  of  India,  the  early,  but  un- 
fortunately arrested  moral  development  of  ancient  China, 
and  the  implications  of  social  and  of  moral  culture  con- 
tained in  the  newly  unveiled  remains  of  Cnossos,  it  is 
impossible  to  resist  the  conclusion  that  the  slowly  evolved 
Hebrew  monotheism,  notwithstanding  its  undeniable 
worth,  was  only  an  isolated,  obscure,  and  at  that  time 
negligible  peculiarity  of  a  numerically  insignificant  tribe, 
separated  by  circumstances  from  the  rest  of  the  world. 
Such  a  conclusion  does  not  in  the  least  invalidate  the 
worth  which  the  growing  Bible  had  for  the  infinitesimal 
minority  of  mankind  who  had  access  to  it.  But  it  does 
entirely  destroy  the  illusion  that  the  Bible  has  been  the 
light  of  the  world.  With  its  position  in  the  Christian  era 
I  have  already  dealt.  But,  in  considering  the  relations  of 
the  Bible  to  religion,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  to  show 
how  small  has  been  the  range  of  its  influence  compared 
with  the  immeasurable  realm  of  Man. 


CHAPTER   VIII 


THE    BIBLE    AND    MORALS 


By  morals  as  distinguished  from  religion  we  generally 
mean  the  relations  of  obligation  or  devotion  between  man 
and  man,  whether  taken  individually  or  collectively. 
Such  relations  have  in  all  ages  been  thought  to  require  a 
religious  sanction  ;  and,  as  the  preceding  chapter  implies, 
I  cannot  agree  with  those  who  dispute  this  judgment  of 
the  orbis  terrarum.  Perhaps  it  is  needless  to  repeat 
that  I  regard  all  forms  of  religious  sanction  hitherto  as 
only  more  or  less  imperfect  suggestions  of  the  purer 
faith,  which  is  still  a  promise  of  the  future,  though  its 
germs  lay  in  the  animism  of  primeval  man.  But,  while 
morals  may  and  do  depend  on  the  religious  sanction 
involved  in  loyalty  to  the  Whole  ^  of  which  we  are  parts, 
much  mischief  has  been  wrought  by  an  impracticable 
refusal  ever  to  consider  morals  apart  from  religion,  and 
by  an  equally  impracticable   insistence   not  only  on  the 

1  This  is  not  necessarily  the  divine  Universe  ;  lesser  wholes  have  served 

the  purpose  hitherto.     The  family,  the  city,  the  empire,  the  Church,  the 

all-embracing  fatherhood   of  God,  have   all  evoked  a  loyalty  which,  in 

each  case,  according  to  the  customs  of  different  times,  has  manifested  its 

identity  with  religion  by  rites  and  ceremonies  around  the  household  altar, 

or  in  the  temples  of  the  city's  patron  deities,  or  that  of  the  tribal  god,  or 

has  been  sometimes  sanctified  by  the  higher  ideal  of  a  Holy  Catholic 

Church. 

218 


MIXED   MORALITY   OF   THE   BIBLE    219 

close  relationship  of  these  two,  but  on  the  inseparability 
of  morals  and  theology.  This  error  has  continually 
engendered  prejudiced  misjudgments  of  the  conduct  and 
character  of  those  who  differ  from  us  in  religious  belief. 
It  has  also  inevitably  led  the  Christian  generations  to 
cherish  an  utterly  exaggerated  and  perverse  estimate  of 
the  moral  differences  between  Christian  and  Pagan 
times.^  But  though  there  has  been  much  exaggeration, 
the  result  of  theological  zeal,  it  can  hardly  be  disputed 
that  the  Bible  has  had,  on  the  whole,  an  elevating  and 
refining  influence  on  the  morals  of  that  limited  section  of 
mankind  who  have  received  it  as  God's  message  to  them. 
And  it  is  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  give  an  impartial 
review  of  the  nature  and  extent  of  that  influence,  and  of 
the  causes  of  its  unfortunate  perversion. 

Simple  religionists  who  have  never  studied  their  Bible 
other  that  devotionally,  or  with  devotional  preconceptions, 
see  in  it  only  what  they  bring  to  it,  and  have  no  idea  of 
the  exceedingly  mixed  morality  which  pervades  its  pages 
from  beginning  to  end.  Thus,  the  amours  of  the  "  sons 
of  God  and  daughters  of  men,"  the  story  of  Noah's 
drunkenness,  and  the  far  more  horrible  legend  of  Lot  and 
his  daughters,  the  lying  of  Abraham  and  Isaac  to  Pharaoh 
and  Abimelech,  the  weak  and  cruel  conduct  of  Abraham 
to  Hagar,  Jacob's  unspeakable  treachery  to  his  aged  father, 
his  dishonest  dealings  with  Laban,  the  success  of  which 
is  ascribed  to  the  divine  approval, — all  these  and  a  score  of 
other  revolting  tales  of  pious  craftiness  or  brutal  impurity 

1  Dr  Dill  has  incidentally  illustrated  this  in  his  two  books  on  Roman 
society  in  the  early  centuries  of  our  era.  The  late  Mr  Lecky  also,  in 
his  chapter  on  "  the  Pagan  Empire  "  {History  of  European  Morals\  has 
clearly  shown  how  false  is  the  notion  that  philanthropy,  charity,  in  the 
highest  sense,  and  a  recognition  of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  were  entirely 
wanting  before  the  apostohc  missions. 


220  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

and  bloodshed,  uncondemned  by  the  compilers,  are  passed 
over  by  the  pious  reader  with  a  moral  indifference  akin  to 
colour  blindness  ;  and  the  pages  containing  these  repulsive 
incidents  are  passionately  defended  as  absolutely  essential 
to  the  moral  instruction  of  little  children. 

Nor  are  these  relics  of  savagery  confined  to  the 
Pentateuch.  Indeed,  the  Book  of  Joshua,  which,  how- 
ever, is  now  usually  reckoned  as  an  epilogue  belonging  to 
that  ancient  volume,  has  perhaps  done  more  to  stimulate 
among  Christian  peoples  the  worship  of  the  "  God  of 
battles  "  than  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  to  discourage  it. 
As  to  the  Book  of  Judges,  while  it  has  much  interest 
for  the  intelligent  and  sufficiently  instructed  student 
of  the  patriotic  folklore  and  germinating  superstitions 
of  a  people  destined  for  a  great  spiritual  mission, 
— its  morals  are  simply  those  of  a  horde  of  savage 
conquerors  not  yet  firmly  settled  in  their  new  possessions, 
and  believing  themselves  commanded  by  their  tribal  god 
to  spare  neither  aliens  nor  brethren  when  the  sacred 
"  covenant "  was  concerned.  It  is  needless  to  refer  to  other 
books,  except  to  acknowledge,  what  only  prejudice  can 
deny,  that  though  the  morality  of  the  later  Old  Testament 
Scriptures  is  always  imperfect,  the  general  tone  continually 
rises  until  in  some  of  the  prophets  it  reaches  a  high 
degree  of  purity  and  sometimes  of  grandeur.  But  it  is 
only  necessary  to  mention  the  cases  of  Samuel  and  Agag, 
David  and  Joab,  the  sons  of  Rizpah,  Elijah's  slaughter 
of  the  prophets  of  Baal — all  of  which  are  related  with 
obvious  or  implied  approval, — in  order  to  suggest  the 
grounds  on  which  Old  Testament  morality  must  be 
adjudged  to  be  of  a  very  mixed  character. 

I  do  not  forget — indeed  it  is  my  purpose  to  insist — 
that  amidst  the  coarse  recitals  of  a  barbarous  age  there  are 


CASE   OF   THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL     221 

interspersed  stories  or  parables  such  as  that  of  Abraham's 
intercession  for  Sodom,  or  of  Balaam's  unwilling  obedi- 
ence to  conscience,  which  contain  in  germ  the  elements 
of  a  higher  morality.  All  I  say  is  that  the  Bible  is  a 
book  of  mixed  morality,  and  this  is  true  not  only  of  the 
Old  Testament,  but  of  the  New.  The  charm  of  the 
Synoptic  Gospels  is  such  that  criticism  recognises  it  as 
sacred  ground,  and  retires  in  reverence,  provided  only 
that  it  is  not  required  to  accept  beautiful  but  unauthen- 
ticated  traditions  as  authoritative  facts.  But  the  spiritual 
romance  which  the  Church  of  the  Second  Century  so 
strangely  admitted  as  a  matter-of-fact  gospel,  and  as  written 
in  extreme  age  by  the  son  of  Zebedee,  is,  in  many  parts, 
utterly  wanting  in  the  "  sweet  reasonableness "  which 
characterises  the  earlier  narratives.  The  opening  has 
that  sort  of  alluring  mystery  which  has  always  captivated 
souls  aspiring  after  the  unknowable.  The  narratives, 
though  regarded  by  M.  Jean  Reville  as  mere  parables 
setting  forth  successively  the  spiritual  principles  embodied 
in  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus,  are  so  written  as  to  thrill 
us  with  an  intensely  human  interest  that  is  generally 
lacking  in  the  Synoptic  parables,  if  we  except  that  of  the 
Prodigal  Son.  The  story  of  the  Samaritan  woman  in 
chapter  iv.,  for  instance,  concentrates  within  twenty- 
six  verses  an  amazingly  lifelike  study  of  a  childlike 
nature,  innocently  enslaved  by  a  sectarian  training,^  but 
still  open  to  the  blessed  influence  of  a  nobler  faith, 
though  only  dimly  understood.^  The  woman's  curiosity,^ 
her  childish  materialism,*  her  artless  cunning  in  the 
evasion  of  an  awkward  question,^  are  notes  of  a  master 
in  the  drawing  of  character.     And  the  recognition  of  the 

1  Verse  9.  2  Verse  25.  ^  Verses  9,  11. 

^  Verse  15.  ^  Verses  19,  20. 


222  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

Christ  by  an  alien  race,  a  recognition  for  which  all  these 
picturesque  details  are  a  preparation,  was  probably 
intended  as  a  concrete  vindication  of  that  larger  mission 
of  Christianity  which  at  the  date  of  the  obscure  origin  of 
the  Book  ^  was  still  disputed  by  the  Judaising  faction  of 
the  Church. 

Almost  equally  interesting  from  its  vivid  portrayal  of 
character  is  the  ninth  chapter,  in  which  Christ  is  mani- 
fested as  the  light  of  the  world.  The  symbolic  miracle 
by  which  this  conception  is  conveyed  is  wrought  upon  a 
man  whose  sturdiness  of  loyalty  to  his  benefactor,  whose 
shrewdnesss  of  repartee  when  accused,  and  whose  un- 
flinching courage  when  face  to  face  with  ecclesiastical 
tyranny,  have  been  the  delight  and  sometimes  the  inspira- 
tion of  readers.  His  pathetic  refrain,  "  He  hath  opened 
mine  eyes,"  was,  no  doubt,  in  the  prophetic  soul  of  the 
author,  the  language  of  a  redeemed  world,  rather  than  that 
of  any  individual  subject  of  miracle.  Yet,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Woman  of  Samaria,  his  genius,  in  this  respect 
perhaps  unrivalled,  invests  a  world-wide  theophany  with 
the  intensest  and  most  delightful  personal  interest.  It 
must  be  obvious  that  the  evangelist,  although  himself 
almost  certainly  a  Jew,  was  contemplating  with  joy  the 
future  prevalence  of  a  sincerer  light  of  truth  in  which 
the  Jewish  superstition  of  the  Sabbath  would  disappear 
as  a  lingering  cloud  is  absorbed  in  a  dry  dawn.  "  And 
it  was  the  Sabbath  day  when  Jesus  made  the  clay" — a 
clear  opus  operatum^  a  "  manner  of  work,"  certainly  in- 
cluded in  the  prohibitions  of  the  fourth  commandment 

1  The  Fourth  Gospel  was  probably  at  first  passed  from  hand  to  hand  in 
a  comparatively  narrow  circle  of  "  Broad  Church  "  Christians  touched  by 
Philonism.  Thus  it  may  very  well  have  been  written  early  in  the  second 
century,  but  it  certainly  did  not  pass  into  general  circulation  till  after 
Justin's  time. 


JESUS   BREAKS  THE   SABBATH         223 

— and  therefore,  as  in  the  previous  case  of  the  paralytic 
in  chapter  v.,  where  Jesus  had  only  directed  work  to  be 
done  on  the  Sabbath,  without  doing  it  himself,  the  Jews 
persecuted  Jesus  "  because  he  had  done  these  things  on 
the  Sabbath  day." 

The  blunt,  reiterated,  and  unswerving  opposition  of 
fact  to  prejudice  in  the  unsophisticated  replies  of  the 
loyal  soul  to  all  condemnations  of  his  benefactor,  have  a 
quaint  and  touching  interest.  "  Whether  he  be  a  sinner 
or  no,  I  know  not  :  one  thing  I  know,  that  whereas  I 
was  blind,  now  I  see."  "Why,  herein  is  a  marvellous 
thing,  that  ye  know  not  from  whence  he  is,  and  yet  he 
hath  opened  mine  eyes  !  "  The  difference  between  the 
sturdy  faithfulness  of  this  man,  and  the  poltroonery  of 
the  creature  in  chapter  v.,  who,  to  gratify  his  benefactor's 
persecutors,  readily  turned  informer  (v.  15),  suggests  that 
this  extraordinary  writer  retained,  amidst  all  his  mystic 
speculations,  an  intense  interest  in  the  characters  he 
created,  and  rejoiced  in  depicting  differences  of  moral 
weakness  and  strength.  Thus,  while  he  kept  steadfastly 
to  his  plan  of  a  new  gospel  which  should  emphasise  the 
incarnation  of  the  Logos  and  his  manifestation  as  the 
light  of  the  world  and  the  diviner  life  of  man,  all  being 
consummated  by  the  eternal  Passover  which  cancelled  the 
Mosaic  law,  yet  he  never  lost  interest  in  detail,  and 
his  parabolic  stories  now  interest  us  much  more  by  their 
keen  human  touches  than  by  any  doctrinal  suggestion. 
In  fact,  there  is  not  one  of  the  singularly  vivid  stories  in 
the  book  which  fails  to  touch  the  noblest  motives  either 
in  reason  or  emotion.^ 

^  The  passage  about  the  woman  taken  in  adultery  (viii.  i-ii)  is,  of 
course,  an  interpolation,  and  the  Leicester  cursive  inserts  it  in  another 
gospel  J  but  it  obviously  belongs  to  the  earliest  traditions. 


224  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

But  very  different  is  the  case  of  the  mystical  discourses, 
interspersed  with  bitter  wrangles,  by  which  the  lessons  of 
the  beautiful  stories  are  supposed  to  be  applied.  For 
surely  it  is  impossible,  without  a  haunting  sense  of  un- 
reality, to  apply  Matthew  Arnold's  phrase  of  "  sweet 
reasonableness "  to  the  provocation  of  opponents  by 
violent  paradox,  so  characteristic  of  the  arguments,  or  to 
the  bitter  reproaches  hurled  against  those  opponents  be- 
cause the  paradoxes  were  not  received  as  obvious  divine 
truth.  What  a  stupendous  contrast  there  is  between  the 
sunny  Beatitudes,  or  even  the  simple  and  self-interpreting 
paradoxes  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  the  dark, 
forbidding,  arbitrarily  obscure  enunciations  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  !  "  I  say  unto  ye,  that  ye  resist  not  evil."  Well, 
it  is  surely  a  natural  paradox,  suggested  by  a  strong  re- 
pugnance to  the  prevalent  code  of  vengeance — "  An  eye 
for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth.'*  But  it  easily  re- 
solves itself  into  a  change  of  spirit  from  the  old  hatred 
of  foes  to  a  wish  for  their  good  equally  with  our  own.^ 
But  what  could  unprepared  Rabbis  and  their  disciples 
possibly  make  of  the  dark  sayings  so  improbably  attri- 
buted by  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  Jesus  almost  at  the 
beginning  of  his  ministry  ?  "  My  Father  worketh  hitherto, 
and  I  work  ! "  It  may  be  easy  enough  now  for  us  to 
see  in  these  words  a  daring  anti-sabbatarian  denial  of  the 
tradition  that  God's  Sabbath  after  the  six  days'  creation 
was  an  age-long  rest.  But  if  it  had  been  uttered  under 
the  circumstances  detailed  in  the  narrative,  it  would  have 
been  a  very  dark  saying,  and  scarcely  calculated  to  begin 
an    amicable    discussion.     And    if,   as  we  are  told    in   a 

^  If  St  Paul  was  familiar  with  the  Synoptic  tradition— a  doubtful  point 
—  he  took  a  very  sensible  view  of  this  paradox,  as  witness  Acts  xvi.  37  ; 
xxiii.  17,  etc.  ;  xxvi.  29. 


DISCORD    WITH   THE   BEATITUDES    225 

previous  discourse,  "  God  sent  not  his  Son  into  the 
world  to  condemn  the  world,"  the  following  discussions 
with  the  Jews  are  singularly  discordant  with  that  saying. 
For  every  one  of  them  bristles  with  provocation,  and 
inevitably  incites  a  proud  and  prejudiced  people  to  reject 
with  anger  the  supposed  message  of  salvation.  "  Ye  are 
of  your  father  the  devil,  and  the  lusts  of  your  father  ye 
will  do "  (viii.  44).  This  may  or  may  not  have  been 
true,  but  in  any  case  the  words  were  hardly  in  accord 
with  the  Beatitude,  "  Blessed  are  the  peacemakers." 

The  truth  is  that  these  discussions  are  wholly  unhis- 
torical,  and  existed  only  in  the  imagination  of  the  un- 
known writer,  who  considered  them  necessary  to  elucidate 
his  idea  of  a  Logos-Messiah.  The  strong  opposition  of 
the  Judaising  faction  of  the  Church  to  any  such  conception 
probably  wrought  in  his  mind  a  resentment  which  led 
him  to  represent  the  original  forefathers  of  that  faction 
as  the  bitterest  and  most  hopeless  enemies  of  the  Christ. 
To  such  a  mood  the  heat  of  the  imagined  debates  was  a 
matter  of  course.  But  our  point  at  present  is  their  bear- 
ing upon  morality,  and  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  that 
the  judgment  of  completely  emancipated  opinion  in  the 
future  can  be  other  than  adverse.  How  much  of  in- 
tolerance, how  much  of  bigotry,  how  much  of  the  Church's 
tyrannous  demand  for  slavish  submission  of  the  reason  on 
pain  of  damnation  may  be  owing  to  these  wrangling  dis- 
cussions in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  we  can  never  accurately 
know.  But  they  certainly  set  the  example  of  an  imperious 
demand  for  instant  acceptance  of  vague,  indefinable,  im- 
palpable, unverifiable  assertions,  and  that  on  pain  of  hell. 

The  reason  why  the  imperious  and  intolerant  attitude 
often  assumed  by  the  ideal  speaker  in  these  disputes  has 
failed  to  strike  Christian  readers  generally  as  irreconcil- 

15 


226  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

able  with  the  lovely  character  predominant  in  the  Synoptic 
Gospels,  is  perhaps  that  such  painful  words  as  those 
quoted  above  were  always  justified  by  the  assumption 
that  a  supernatural  Being,  about  to  mount  the  judgment 
seat  of  the  world,  might  well  speak  with  severe  authority.^ 
But  it  was  forgotten  that  "  the  Jews  " — as  they  are  con- 
tinually called  in  the  book  —  did  not  recognise  this 
supernatural  character,  and  though  I  have  no  wish  to 
defend  them,  seeing  they  were  as  cantankerous  as  ob- 
structives of  progress  know  how  to  be,  still,  accepting  the 
apparent  chronology  of  the  narrative,  there  was  some 
excuse  for  their  hesitation  to  admit  so  extraordinary  a 
claim  within  a  few  months  of  its  being  made.^  And  to 
an  impartial  judgment  it  can  scarcely  appear  reasonable 
that  the  natural  objection  of  "  the  Jews "  to  open  con- 
tempt for  their  Sabbath  superstition  should  be  met  only 
by  mystical  utterances  which  they  could  not  possibly  be 
expected  to  understand. 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  notice  the  different  aspects  in 
which  the  story  of  the  treacherous  paralytic  appeared  to 
two  of  the  greatest  preachers  of  the  Church's  Silver  Age, 
Augustine  and  Chrysostom.  To  the  former,  bent  only  on 
the  spiritualisation  of  every  sentence  at  all  costs,  the  base 
action  of  the  healed  man  offered  no  difficulty  whatever  ; 


^  The  difference  between  these  so-called  Johannine  passages  and  de- 
nunciations in  the  Synoptics,  such  as  Matt,  xxiii.,  etc.,  is  that  the  latter 
were  such  as  any  prophet  might  utter  without  pretending  to  any  other 
authority  than  that  of  right  against  wrong.  The  principles  maintained 
were  impersonal ;  but  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  the  offence  of  the  interlocutors 
is  a  personal  one  ;  they  would  not  recognise  the  supernatural  dignity 
asserted. 

2  True,  the  Fourth  Gospel  has  visits  to  Jerusalem  of  which  the  Synoptics 
know  nothing  {cf.  ii.  23),  but  if  we  take  its  chronology  from  itself,  "  the 
Jews"  in  the  capital  cannot  have  had  much  opportunity  of  hearing  the 
doctrine  of  Jesus  before  the  miracle  of  Siloam  in  chapter  v. 


AUGUSTINE   AND   CHRYSOSTOM       227 

for  the  betrayer's  only  object  was  to  preach  the  Gospel.^ 
"  '  He  went  away,  and  told  the  Jews  it  was  Jesus  who  had 
made  him  whole.'  He  proclaimed,  but  they  raged.  He 
preached  their  salvation  ;  they  did  not  seek  their  salva- 
tion." But  the  poor  creature  who  had  been  rebuked  for 
carrying  his  bed  on  the  Sabbath,  and  from  whom  the 
name  of  his  abettor  in  the  crime  had  been  so  sternly 
demanded,  knew  very  well  that  what  "  the  Jews  "  wanted 
was  the  temporal  perdition  of  his  healer.  Surely  it  is  not 
going  too  far  to  say  that  before  a  mind  like  Augustine's 
could  have  been  so  benumbed  to  the  moral  issues  involved, 
it  must  have  been  wholly  saturated  with  non-moral 
theological  speculations  which  relegated  ethics  to  a 
secondary  place.  Nor  are  we  in  the  least  debarred  from 
such  criticism  by  our  own  belief  that  the  whole  story  lies 
in  imagination's  realm.  For  if  we  may  debate  the  real 
or  feigned  madness  of  Hamlet,  or  the  contrast  between 
moral  exhortation  and  conduct  in  Polonius,  certainly  we 
may  scrutinise  with  interest  the  moral  characteristics  of  the 
actors  in  this  greater  spiritual  tragedy.  And  besides,  of 
course,  both  Augustine  and  Chrysostom  were  assured  that 
they  were  dealing  with  actual  historical  events. 

Very  different,  however,  was  the  effect  of  this  narrative 
upon  Chrysostom.  We  have  already  noted  the  deep 
humanity  of  this  greatest  of  preachers,  and  are  not 
surprised  to  find  that  the  conduct  of  the  paralytic  man 
puzzled  and  apparently  pained  him.  Of  course,  as  an 
orthodox  divine,  he  had  his  explanation  ;  but  it  was  not 
— if  I  may  say  so  with  respect — so  absurd  as  Augustine's, 
and  it  is  only  with  an  effort  that  he  is  content  therewith. 
After  dwelling  upon  the  probable  spiritual  effect  of  the 

1  "Non  fuit  piger  in  evangelisando  quern  viderit,"  Augustini,  Opera, 
tome  iv.,  p.  428  A,  Benedictine  edition. 


228  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

words  uttered  by  Jesus  when  he  met  the  restored  man  in 
the  Temple — "  Sin  no  more,  lest  a  worse  thing  come  unto 
thee  " — Chrysostom  tells  us  that  it  was  in  the  frame  of 
mind  stimulated  by  such  words  that  the  man  went  to 
"  the  Jews."  "  For  he  did  not  say,  '  This  is  he  who  said 
take  up  thy  bed '  ;  since  that  was  the  specious  accusation 
which  they  pressed  against  (Jesus)  ;  but  he  always  keeps 
the  defence  to  the  front,  and  reminds  them  of  his  healing 
power  ^  in  his  zeal  to  win  over  and  reconcile  the  opponents 
(those  others).  For  he  was  not  so  unfeeling  as  after  such 
a  benefit  and  such  a  warning  to  betray  his  benefactor,  and 
to  give  this  message  with  treacherous  intent.  For, 
indeed,  if  he  had  even  been  a  beast,  if  he  had  been  some 
inhuman  creature  or  made  of  stone,  such  a  benefit  and 
such  an  awe  must  have  restrained  him.  Besides,  he  had 
the  threat  fresh  in  memory,  and  would  have  been 
afraid  of  some  worse  thing  befalling  him,  since  he  had 
had  effective  proof  of  the  might  of  his  healer.  Still 
further,  if  he  had  intended  betrayal,  he  would  have  been 
silent  about  the  healing,  while  he  would  have  told  of  the 
transgression,  and  condemned  it.  But  it  is  not  so  ;  it  is 
not  so  !  On  the  contrary,  his  words  were  marked  by 
boldness  and  loyalty  ;  and  he  proclaims  his  benefactor 
with  no  less  (zeal)  than  the  blind  man  did.  For  what 
does  the  latter  say  ?  '  He  made  clay  and  anointed  mine 
eyes.'     Just  so  does  this  man."  ^ 

Every  reader  must  judge  for  himself  of  the  effectiveness 
of  Chrysostom's  defence.  But  at  any  rate  it  must  be 
conceded  that  he  shows  more  sensitiveness  to  the  moral 
issue  than  Augustine  does.  Our  point,  however,  is  simply 
that  the  Fourth  Gospel  tended  to  subordinate  plain  moral 

^  rrdXiv  rov  larphv  SriKov  iroiwv- 

2  Chrysostom,  Benedictine  edition,  tome  viii.  p.  218. 


SUBORDINATION   OF   MORALS         229 

issues  to  the  prevalence  of  theosophical  lore,  and  that  this 
tendency  was  found  to  be  irresistible  even  by  the  greatest 
of  the  Church's  priests.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  deny  that 
there  are  other  phases  of  the  influence  of  this  Gospel 
which  are  so  precious  that  the  world,  no  less  than  the 
Church,  would  be  loth  to  lose  it.  But  if  we  would  truly 
estimate  the  relation  between  the  Bible  and  morals,  we 
must  keep  an  open  ear  to  the  discords  as  well  as  to  the 
harmony  with  the  moral  ideal  of  the  "  choir  invisible," 
the  resultant  of  all  the  best  feelings  of  the  noblest  hearts. 
The  aim  of  this  Fourth  Gospel,  however,  was  only 
incidentally  moral.  For  certainly  its  chief  purpose  was  to 
declare,  whether  men  would  hear  or  no,  the  transfigured 
doctrine  of  the  eternal  Christ,  which  was  revealed  in  the 
soul  of  the  writer  through  a  visionary  combination  of  the 
traditional  Jesus  with  an  adapted  idea  of  the  Platonic  and 
Philonic  Logos  of  which  his  knowledge  was  probably 
indirect. 

The  resultant  suggests  the  work  of  a  peculiar  genius, 
perhaps  unparalleled  in  kind  in  all  the  literature  of  the 
world.  And  I  should  be  sorry  for  myself  if  I  were  un- 
susceptible to  the  art,  which  against  a  background  of 
eternity  depicts  a  tragedy  of  time  inseparable  from  its 
background,  but  mingling  all  tones  of  temporal  light  and 
shade,  and  working  into  the  picture  the  most  varied 
touches  of  vivid  human  interest,  all  converging  on  the 
dread  but  glorious  catastrophe,  which  withdraws  all 
thought  and  interest  from  petty  temporal  types  of  God, 
and  engrosses  all  other  forms  of  devotion  in  the  worship 
of  the  eternal  Christ.  I  may  be  told,  indeed,  that  all  this 
is  unreal  ;  for  I  have  admitted  that  the  book  is  a  spiritual 
romance.  But  Jesus  as  described  in  the  Synoptic  narrative 
appears  to  have  thought  that  the  deepest  spiritual  truths 


230  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

required  pictorial  fiction  for  their  expression.  And  the 
commanding  spiritual  genius  of  this  belated  gospel  followed 
him  at  least  in  that. 

Nor  let  it  be  thought  that  this  recognition  of  the 
spiritual  power  of  a  nameless  prophet  is  at  variance  with 
the  tenor  of  this  treatise.  For  an  accurate  estimate  of  the 
relations  of  Man  and  the  Bible  must  needs  assign  full 
value  to  that  mystic  sense  of  our  kinship  with  the  Infinite 
which  an  affected  but  unreal  materialism  can  never  destroy. 
Thus  those  of  us  who  most  frankly  recognise  that  all 
present  theologies  must  merge  in  the  final  truth  that 
infinite  God  is  another  name  for  infinite  Universe,  may 
yet  have  some  sympathy  for  the  doctrine  of  the  eternal 
Christ.  That  is  to  say,  while  we  try  to  bring  our  little 
consciousness  into  practical  and  moral  relation  with  the 
All  in  all,  we  like  at  least  to  picture  to  ourselves  a 
"  mediator  " — not  a  separate  being,  indeed — but  a  finite 
mode  of  the  Infinite,  which  we  can  realise.  And  this 
finite  mode  we  find  to  be  our  true  self.  Nor  is  this  a 
mere  paradox.  For  the  self,  blinded  and  baffled  by 
passions,  is  not  the  true  self.  But  it  is  precisely  that 
false  self  which  disguises  the  Universe  ;  and  the  true  self, 
freed  from  passion,  which  reveals  it.  To  this  true  self 
birth,  re-birth,  divine  light  and  life,  opposition  of  the 
"  world,"  crucifixion,  resurrection,  eternal  life,  all  have  a 
meaning,  though  it  is  not  the  meaning  of  the  sects.  And 
when  we  realise  that  meaning  we  are  grateful  for  the 
Fourth  Gospel.^ 

The  chief  interest  of  the  Book  of  Acts  is  found  in  its 
reminiscences — whether  minutely  historical  or  not  matters 

^  I  take  this  to  be  generally  the  meaning  attached  by  the  Rev.  R.  J. 
Campbell  to  the  "  eternal  Christ,"  but  he  might  desire  to  see  it  expressed 
otherwise. 


BOOK   OF   ACTS  231 

little — of  the  early  passion  of  faith  which  moved  mountains 
and  laid  firm  the  foundations  of  the  "  City  of  God."  The 
inspiration  of  plain  men  to  face  the  fetish-mongers  whom 
they  had  dreaded,  to  "  obey  God  rather  than  man,"  moves 
us  yet  when  we  read  the  story.  The  portentous  daring 
of  Stephen,  who  plainly  prophesied  a  larger  faith  than 
even  the  day  of  Pentecost  had  revealed,  and  who,  in  his 
rapture  at  the  prospect,  blenched  not — 

''Tho'  cursed  and  scorned,  and  bruised  with  stones," 

is,  as  Tennyson  recognised,  an  example  that  stirs  us  yet. 
That  Saul  of  Tarsus  was  moved  by  Stephen's  death  and 
eventually  took  up  his  work  of  evolving  an  elaborate  and 
non-Judaic  Christianity  out  of  the  memories  of  Jesus,  is 
as  probable,  or,  perhaps,  more  probable,  than  any  other 
theory  of  the  beginnings  of  the  Pauline  missions.  And 
there  is  surely  in  that  extraordinary  man's  overpowering 
passion  of  devotion  a  fascination  which  can  never  lose  its 
charm  so  long  as  the  mystery  of  selfless  heroism  touches 
the  heart  of  man.  A  book  containing  such  memoirs 
must  always  be  inspiring  in  the  sense  of  stimulating  a 
desire  to  live  beyond  ourselves.  But  this  acknowledg- 
ment does  not  necessarily  imply  that  in  morality  it  is 
always  a  safe  guide. 

The  deaths  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira  are  always  assumed 
to  be  a  work  of  divine  vengeance,  and  therefore  beyond 
question.  But  the  time  has  gone  by  when  that  assump- 
tion can  be  allowed,  or  when  such  an  "  act  of  God  "  can 
be  regarded  as  in  accordance  with  the  divine  order.-^     The 

1  It  is  useless  to  refer  to  deaths  by  lightning,  earthquake,  plague,  or 
pestilence  as  analogous  "acts  of  God."  In  the  first  place,  they  are  not 
"acts"  at  all,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  incidents  in  the  life  of  the 
Universe,  without  which  it  would  not  be  perfect  as  it  is  ;  and  next,  these 


232  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

pretence  and  the  lie  by  which  it  was  maintained  are  indeed 
a  painfully  apposite  illustration  of  the  corruption  always 
incidental  to  collective    religious    enthusiasm.     But  that 
does  not  in  the  least  justify  the  severity  of  the  sentence, 
which,  according  to  the  account  of  Sapphira's  death,  was 
pronounced  by  the  Apostle  Peter  himself.     And  it  seems 
impossible  to  doubt  that  this  repulsive  incident  did,  in 
succeeding  generations,  go  far  to  reconcile  a  superstitious 
laity  to  the  elimination  of  morality  from  theocracy  in  the 
rule  of  the  priest.     A  less  painful  but  still  indefensible 
exercise  of   apostolic  power  for  the  injury  of    the  body 
rather  than  the    salvation  of    the    soul  is  related  in  the 
account   of    St   Paul's    first    missionary    journey  ;    for, 
according    at   any    rate    to    modern    ideas,    Elymas,    the 
sorcerer  of  Paphos,  had  as  much  right  to  oppose  St  PauFs 
doctrine  as  the  latter  had  to  preach  it.     But,  according  to 
the  morality  of  the  Book  of  Acts,  this  was  not  the  case  ; 
and  Elymas  was  justly  punished  with  temporary  blindness 
for  daring  to  resist  the  conversion  of  his  patron.     Now, 
however  mercenary  his  motives  may  have  been,  modern 
law  and  modern  equity  would  concede  to  him  the  right 
of  doing — as  he  thought — the  best  for  himself.     And  the 
general   ecclesiastical   approval    of  St    Paul's    miracle    of 
vengeance    upon    him    is    only  another   instance    of    the 
influence  of  this  book  in  eliminating  morality  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  priest. 

I  shall  not  attempt,  where  so  many  more  learned  than 
I  have  failed,  to  separate  truth  from  error  in  the  confused 
accounts    given    in   Acts    and    Galatians    of    the    council 


events  have  no  such  reference  to  human  conduct  as  is  alleged  in  the  case 
of  Ananias.  In  the  latter  case  God  is  supposed  to  go  out  of  his  way  to 
kill  a  man  for  an  offence  for  which  excommunication  would  have  been  an 
ample  penalty. 


ST  PAUL  AND  THE  JERUSALEM  DECREE  233 

called  in  Jerusalem  to  consider  the  unprecedented 
procedure  of  St  Paul  among  the  Gentiles.  But,  at  any 
rate,  it  is  clear  that  the  so-called  decree  in  Acts  xv.  29 
was  never  observed.  For  in  i  Cor.  St  Paul  feels 
called  upon  to  offer  his  advice  on  the  very  questions 
there  supposed  to  be  closed — the  eating  of  meat  offered 
to  idols  and  of  blood — and  his  advice  is  much  more 
liberal  than  could  possibly  be  consistent  with  the  alleged 
decree.  "  Whatsoever  is  sold  in  the  shambles,  that  eat, 
asking  no  question  for  conscience  sake"  (i  Cor.  x.  25). 
But  as  they  were  certainly  not  Jewish  shambles,  this 
involved  eating  blood.  With  regard  to  things  offered 
to  idols,  the  question  is  more  complicated.  The  apostle 
sees  no  harm  in  eating  them  ;  but  if  attention  is  called 
to  the  fact  that  they  have  been  so  consecrated,  then  he 
thinks  Christians  should  abstain,  not  on  their  own  account, 
but  for  the  sake  of  the  idolaters,  who  might  misunder- 
stand their  act  (i  Cor.  x.  27).  Now  one  of  two  things 
is  certain,  if  St  Paul  wrote  this  epistle,  as  I  think  he  did  : 
either  he  had  never  heard  of  the  "  decree,"  or  he  set  it 
at  nought.  In  either  case  it  follows  that  the  passage  in 
Acts  XV.  describing  the  compromise  is  only  the  first 
amongst  an  endless  series  of  ecclesiastical  makeshifts  in 
which  a  false  peace  has  glossed  over  a  fundamental  schism. 
But  such  pretences  do  not  favour  a  high  moral  tone. 

The  quarrel  between  Paul  and  Barnabas  about  their 
fickle  follower,  John  Mark,  need  not  involve  any  reproach 
to  either  of  them,  considered  as  ordinary  men  of  the 
world.  But  when  the  writer  tells  us  "the  contention 
was  so  sharp  between  them  that  they  departed  asunder 
one  from  the  other,"  he  suggests  a  sort  of  hot  temper 
scarcely  consistent  with  that  "  sweet  reasonableness "  of 
brotherly  love  which,  as  we  shall  have  to  note  again,  was 


234  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

a  pre-eminent  and  distinctive  characteristic  of  the  earliest 
Christianity  amongst  its  numerous  Oriental  competitors 
for  spiritual  dominion.  On  the  other  hand,  the  spirited 
conduct  of  Paul  in  refusing  a  clandestine  release  from 
the  Philippian  gaol,  and  in  demanding  the  attendance  of 
the  erring  magistrates,  which  amounted  practically  to  an 
apology,  is  gratifying  to  the  natural  man,  while  it  shows 
that,  according  to  its  chief  apostle,  the  rule  of  love  was 
never  intended  to  cancel  the  rule  of  right. 

Whether  St  Paul  ever  addressed  an  audience  of 
"  Epicureans  and  Stoicks  "  on  the  Areopagus  may  be  an 
open  question  ;  but  if  he  did,  and  used  anything  like  the 
words  attributed  to  him,  those  philosophers  must  have 
been  very  much  astonished  to  hear  that  they  supposed 
"the  Godhead"  to  be  "like  unto  gold  or  silver,  or  stone 
graven  by  art  and  man's  device."  But  we  are  more 
concerned  with  the  rhetorical  art  or  trick  by  which  he 
forced  into  his  argument  an  inscription  on  one  among 
several  altars  in  Athens  "  to  an  unknown  god "  ;  the 
truth  being  that  in  bygone  times,  when  the  inhabitants 
of  a  street  or  district  had  suffered  from  some  divine  act 
which  they  could  not  assign  to  any  particular  deity  by 
name,  they  tried  to  make  sure  of  propitiation  by  setting 
up  an  altar  to  "  an  unknown  god."  St  Paul,  if  he  was 
as  well  instructed  as  his  native  university  town  was  able 
to  make  him,  must  have  known  this.  But  his  principle 
of  "  being  all  things  to  all  men  '*  removed  all  scruple 
about  the  use  of  what  to  others  than  the  philosophers 
in  his  audience  might  seem  a  telling  point.  Supposing 
the  words  to  be  genuine,  and  not,  as  is  more  probable, 
a  happy  thought  of  the  editor,  I  cannot  think  that  they 
set  a  high  example  to  the  pulpit  rhetoric  of  the  future. 
For    the  weakness  of  that  rhetoric  has  always  been  the 


ST  PAUUS  "OCCASIONAL  CONFORMITY"  235 

readiness    to    sacrifice    rigorous  veracity  for  the  sake  of 
winning  attention  and  sympathy  in  an  appeal. 

But  the  most  unpleasant  incident,  from  a  moral  point 
of  view,  in  St  Paul's  career  as  narrated  in  the  Acts,  was 
what  the  old  Puritans  would  have  called  his  "  occasional 
conformity"  for  the  purpose  of  conciliating  the  Jews, 
whose  sectarian  souls  were  enraged  by  his  work  among 
the  Gentiles.  The  unhappy  weakness  of  the  apostle  in 
yielding,  like  too  many  other  reformers,  to  the  wily 
suggestions  of  compromise,  pressed  on  him  by  far 
inferior  men,  during  his  final  visit  to  Jerusalem,  has  been 
variously  viewed  by  his  admirers  according  as  they  con- 
sidered him  uniformly  infallible  or  no.  It  is  to  the  credit 
of  John  Knox's  sturdy  intellect  that  when  the  rightness 
of  "occasional  conformity"  was  pressed  upon  him  by 
this  very  case,  he  replied  that  he  could  never  satisfy 
himself  that  St  Paul  on  that  occasion  acted  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Spirit.  And  no  wonder.  For  consider 
the  language  of  the  story.  James — said  to  have  been 
the  brother  of  Jesus — and  the  weak  brethren  around  him 
were  terrified  at  the  rumours  going  about,  and  eagerly 
adopted  the  cunning  plan  of  St  Paul's  ostentatious 
participation  in  certain  superstitious  rites ;  comforting 
their  victim  with  the  assurance  that  thus  "  all  may  know 
that  those  things  whereof  they  were  informed  concerning 
thee  are  nothing,  but  that  thou  thyself  walkest  orderly 
and  keepest  the  law." 

It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  decide  whether  this  story 
of  conscious  hypocrisy  is  true  in  fact  or  not ;  and  for 
this  reason,  that  I  am  treating  of  the  relation  of  the  Bible, 
as  it  stands,  to  morals,  and  not  of  the  actual  St  Paul, 
who  may  have  been  entirely  guiltless  of  this  pretence. 
Certainly  it  is  not  what  we  should  expect  from  the  man 


236  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

who  wrote  the  well-known  passage  in  Gal.  ii.  11  :  "  But 
when  Peter  was  come  to  Antioch,  I  withstood  him  to  the 
face,  because  he  was  to  be  blamed.  For  before  that 
certain  came  from  James,  he  did  eat  with  the  Gentiles  : 
but  when  they  were  come,  he  withdrew,  and  separated 
himself,  fearing  them  which  were  of  the  circumcision  "  ; 
precisely  the  fear  which  was  urged  on  Paul  himself  by 
James  and  his  colleagues.  "And  the  other  Jews  dis- 
sembled likewise  with  him,  insomuch  that  Barnabas  also 
was  carried  away  by  their  dissimulation.  But  when  I 
saw  that  they  walked  not  uprightly  according  to  the 
truth  of  the  Gospel,  I  said  unto  Peter  before  them  all, 
If  thou,  being  a  Jew,  livest  after  the  manner  of  the 
Gentiles,  and  not  as  do  the  Jews,  why  compellest  thou 
the  Gentiles  to  live  as  do  the  Jews  ? "  Observe,  St 
Paul's  point  was  that  St  Peter,  when  not  in  fear  of  the 
circumcision,  lived  "after  the  manner  of  the  Gentiles, 
and  not  as  do  the  Jews."  With  what  tremendous  force 
could  the  former  apostle's  words  have  been  used  against 
himself  if  in  Jerusalem  he  weakly  gave  way  to  the  fear 
of  the  circumcision,  under  the  instigation  of  James  !  If 
he  did  do  it,  this  is  the  darkest  blot  on  his  reputation 
after  his  conversion.  But  whether  he  did  or  not,  there 
stands  the  humiliating  story  in  the  alleged  records  of  the 
earliest  Church,  a  precedent  and  an  instigation  to  in- 
numerable ecclesiastical  compromises  with  evil,  whether 
in  our  struggles  for  emancipation  from  effete  law,  or  for 
national  education,  or  for  freedom  of  thought. 

If  we  turn  to  the  Epistles  ascribed  to  the  authorship 
of  St  Paul,  I  cannot  conceive  how  any  unbiassed  judg- 
ment can  fail  to  pronounce  their  general  moral  tendency 
to  be  inspiring,  purifying,  and  ennobling.  But  while 
premising  so  much,  and  reserving  to  a   later    page    the 


EPISTLE   TO   THE   ROMANS  237 

reasons  for  my  own  admiration,  I  will  not  conceal  here 
that  the  morality  of  these  writings  has  darker,  or  at  least 
more  dubious,  shades.  Passing  over  the  terrible  descrip- 
tion of  human  depravity  in  Rom.  i.,  which  was  needed 
as  the  rhetorical  basis  for  the  succeeding  argument,  but 
which  the  writer  in  ii.  14,  15  allows  not  to  be  universally 
true,  we  come  to  the  main  thesis  of  the  epistle,  that  "  a 
man  is  justified  by  faith,  without  the  deeds  of  the  law." 
Now  there  is  a  sense  in  which  this  is  true  ;  and  there  are 
some  indications  in  this  letter  or  treatise  that  St  Paul,  or 
the  writer,  whoever  he  was,  taught  it  in  that  sense.  That 
is  to  say,  if  a  man  who  has  been  a  rebel  against  the  divine 
order  of  the  world  ^  and  whose  passionate  selfishness  has 
wrought  misery  for  himself  and  his  fellows,  should  by 
any  means  be  converted  to  a  spirit  •f  loyalty  toward  that 
divine  order,  he  now  tries  to  work  consciously  with  that 
order,  and  not  against  it  ;  and  the  guilt  of  his  sins  falls 
away,  though  their  consequences  may  have  to  be  remedied 
with  labour  and  tears. 

That  this  was  the  essential  meaning  of  salvation  by  faith 
as  taught  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  is,  I  think,  clear 
from  the  explanation  given  of  the  reason  why  Abraham's 
faith  was  "imputed  to  him  for  righteousness."  That 
reason  is  very  simple,  for  Abraham's  faith  actually  was 
righteousness.     "  He  staggered  not  at  the  promise  of  God 

^  It  is  easy  to  sneer  at  this  phrase  when  we  take  the  order  of  the  world 
as  static  and  not  dynamic,  as  stationary  and  not  progressive.  "  Nature 
red  in  tooth  and  claw"  is  a  favourite  allusion  of  those  who  think,  with  the 
Spanish  king,  that  if  they  had  been  consulted  at  the  "creation"  of  the  world 
they  could  have  given  a  valuable  hint  or  two.  But  the  dynamic  divine  order 
is  that  of  evolution  working  upward  through  the  beast  to  man,  through 
force  to  reason,  through  so-called  "natural  selection"  to  self-sacrifice, 
mutual  devotion,  and  socialism.  The  deeper  questions  involved  cannot  be 
treated  here  ;  but  in  the  Handbook  to  SpinozcCs  Ethics  I  have  tried  to 
show  how  they  are  treated  there. 


238 


MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 


through  unbelief,  but  was  strong  in  faith,  giving  glory  to 
God."  Eliminate  the  traditional  Hebrew  theology  which 
is  here  not  at  all  of  the  essence  of  the  position,  and  what 
is  left  is  a  much-tried  man's  loyalty  to  the  divine  order  of 
the  world,  and  a  determination  to  work  consciously  with 
it,  not  against  it.  But  that  is  surely  the  root  and  indeed 
the  substance  of  all  righteousness. 

Now  let  us  take  a  case  from  modern  poetry,  a  case 
which  illustrates  the  same  doctrine  of  salvation  by  loyalty 
to  the  divine  order,  though  it  is  stated  from  a  very 
different  point  of  view.  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner  is 
in  a  state  of  misery  until  he  can  love  ;  but  with  that 
blessed  experience  comes  his  salvation.  And  that  blessed 
experience  is  engendered  by  a  sudden  perception  of 
beauty  in  the  world.  In  the  utmost  depth  of  his  de- 
pression a  vision  appears  to  him,  not  of  heaven,  but  of 
the  ordinary  world  : — 


"By  the  light 
of  the  moon  he 
beholdeth  God's 
creatures  of  the 
great  calm. " 


**  Their  beauty 
and  their  happi- 
ness." 

"  He  blesseth 
them  in  his 
heart." 


■  Beyond  the  shadow  of  the  ship 
I  watched  the  water  snakes  : 
They  moved  in  tracks  'of  shining  white, 
And  when  they  reared,  the  eltish  Hght 
Fell  ofF  in  hoary  flakes. 

Within  the  shadow  of  the  ship 

I  watched  their  rich  attire  ; 

Blue,  glossy  green,  and  velvet  black. 

They  coiled  and  swam  ;  and  every  track 

Was  a  flash  of  golden  fire. 

O  happy  Hving  things  !      No  tongue 

Their  beauty  might  declare  : 

A  spring  of  love  gushed  from  my  heart. 

And  I  blessed  them  unaware  : 

Sure  my  kind  saint  took  pity  on  me. 

And  I  blessed  them  unaware. 


THE   ORDER   OF   THE   UNIVERSE      239 

"The spell  be-  That  self-same  moment  I  could  pray  : 

gins  to  break. "  Air  i  /- 

And  rrom  my  neck  so  free 

The  Albatross  fell  off,  and  sunk 

Like  lead  into  the  sea." 

The  side  notes  of  the  poet  as  given  above  fully  j  ustif y 
me  in  quoting  these  lines  as  a  description  of  the  restitution 
in  a  desperate  soul  of  that  loyalty  or  faith  which  brings 
salvation.  No  matter  about  the  details  of  the  imaginative 
setting.  No  matter  that  the  vision  of  beauty  is  limited 
and  apparently  accidental.  The  "  kind  saint  "  is  as  easily 
eliminated  from  the  story  as  the  Hebrew  tribal  God  from 
the  above  story  of  Abraham.  The  point  is  that  the 
mariner's  heart  warms  to  the  world  ;  he  feels  love  ;  and 
love  involves  trust  and  hope.  He  feels  himself  in 
harmony  with  God  ;  and  this  is  the  consummation  of 
salvation  by  faith.  So  likewise  when  the  imagined 
Abraham  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  "  staggered  not 
through  unbelief,  but  was  strong  in  faith,  giving  glory  to 
God,"  this  is  only  a  theological  way  of  describing  loyalty 
to  the  divine  order.  The  vision  of  beauty  is  absent, 
though  perhaps  the  hope  that  in  him  "all  generations 
should  be  blessed  "  is  something  better.  But  in  either 
case,  whether  the  stimulus  was  a  sense  of  happy  beauty 
in  the  world,  or  the  hope  of  being  a  benefactor  to  all 
mankind,  the  soul  yielded  loyalty  to  the  divine  order, 
and  each  afforded  an  illustration  of  the  only  moral  sense 
we  can  attach  to  salvation  by  faith. 

But  as  is  usually  the  case  with  novel  or  freshly  stated 
doctrines  that  evoke  enthusiasm,  this  notion  of  salvation 
by  faith  was  pushed  to  extremes,  and  then  presented  in 
perverted  forms  to  which  no  moral  value  can  possibly 
be  attached.  Thus  in  this  very  epistle  the  writer  surely 
spoils  a  noble  passage  (x.  6-9)  by  practically  defending 


240  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

faith  as  a  belief  in  a  much  disputed  fact.  "  If  thou  shalt 
confess  with  thy  mouth  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  shalt 
believe  in  thine  heart  that  God  hath  raised  him  from  the 
dead,  thou  shalt  be  saved."  Here  we  might,  perhaps — 
were  not  the  whole  context  against  it — understand  by 
"  confessing  with  thy  mouth  the  Lord  Jesus  "  an  adoption 
of  the  morality  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  And  in  such  a 
method  of  salvation  there  might  be  reason  enough.  But 
the  notion  that  mere  belief  in  the  resuscitation  of  a  dead 
man — however  great  and  good — can  make  all  the  differ- 
ence between  salvation  and  perdition,  seems  an  arbitrary, 
perverse,  and  unreal  proposition,  which  strikes  upon  us 
as  an  unexpected  side  billow  on  a  labouring  barque,  and 
knocks  us  out  of  all  our  moral  bearings.  For  it  is  not 
positively  moral  to  believe  on  evidence  an  event  like 
that,  and  it  is  immoral  to  believe  it  without ;  though,  of 
course,  it  may  be  said  that  this  belief  in  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  gives  access  to  the  Christian  life  :  and  it  is  this 
which  saves.  But,  in  the  first  place,  thousands  have  lived 
the  Christian  life,  in  the  moral  sense,  while  entirely  dis- 
believing the  bodily  resurrection  of  Christ.  And,  in  the 
next  place,  that  interpretation  is  not  given  by  the  author 
of  the  epistle  himself.  No  ;  for  him  a  sincere  belief 
that  a  questionable  event  has  happened  is  a  sure  passport 
to  salvation.  Now,  such  a  doctrine  is  in  moral  tone 
immensely  below  the  explanation  given  of  Abraham's  faith, 
and  illustrates  how  biblical  writers  shared  the  infirmity 
of  unconsecrated  members  of  the  craft,  who,  having  got 
what  seems  to  them  a  good  idea,  write  it  to  death. 

But  worse  than  this  followed.  For  the  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  I  doubt  not  St  Paul  himself, 
even  if  he  was  not  that  writer,  felt  a  difficulty  in  account- 
ing for  the  strange   fact  that  the   kinsmen  and  fellow- 


SACRED   QUIBBLING  241 

countrymen  of  Jesus,  with  comparatively  few  exceptions, 
rejected  salvation  by  faith,  while  so  many  of  the  Gentiles 
were  attracted  by  it,  that,  for  the  present  at  any  rate,  the 
hopes  of  the  Church  lay  with  the  second  and  not  with 
the  first.  To  explain  this  paradox  he  had  recourse  to 
the  doctrine  of  election,  familiar,  at  least  in  the  form  of 
predestination,  to  the  Pharisees  and  to  various  sects  of 
philosophers  in  a  previous  age.  Thus,  both  Ishmael  and 
Isaac  were,  presumably,  according  to  the  custom  of  those 
prehistoric  times,  equally  legitimate  sons  of  the  father  of 
the  faithful.  But  Ishmael  was  excluded  from  the  inherit- 
ance of  Abraham's  faith,  while  Isaac  was  chosen  to 
continue  it.  Again,  Jacob  and  Esau  were  brought  into 
the  world  at  one  birth,  yet,  "  the  children  being  not  yet 
born,  neither  having  done  any  good  or  evil,  that  the 
purpose  of  God  according  to  election  might  stand,  not  of 
works,  but  of  him  that  calleth — it  was  said  unto  her.  The 
elder  shall  serve  the  younger.  As  it  is  written  :  Jacob 
have  I  loved,  but  Esau  have  I  hated," — a  mysterious 
choice  indeed,  as  the  writer  of  the  epistle,  to  do  him 
justice,  seems  painfully  to  have  felt.  And  the  point  to  be 
made  by  this  laborious  quotation  of  legendary  lore  is  that, 
in  accordance  with  previous  precedents,  God  has  now 
chosen  the  Gentiles  to  be  the  spiritual  heirs  of  Abraham, 
while  the  natural  heirs  are,  for  a  time  at  least,  ignored. 

In  this  exposition  of  the  paradoxical  transference  of 
Messiah's  kingdom  from  the  chosen  people  to  the  un- 
covenanted  Gentiles,  moral  considerations  are  entirely  put 
on  one  side,  and  "  the  purpose  of  God  according  to 
election"  is  made  supreme.  Now,  it  would  ill  become 
those  who  believe  in  a  universal  and  divine  order,  inde- 
pendent of   human  caprice,  to  condemn  as  wholly  false 

this  reference  of  certain  puzzling  events  to  the  sovereign 

16 


242  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

will  of  God.  But  what  revolts  us  is  the  apparently 
exceptional  nature  of  the  election  taught ;  for  it  is  not 
a  universal  divine  order,  but  "  an  election  of  grace." 
That  is,  it  is  concerned  with  the  "  plan  of  salvation,"  or 
the  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  or  the  establishment  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ.  But,  as  to  all  human  affairs  outside 
this  "election  of  grace,"  the  tone  of  the  epistle  is  consonant 
with  the  words  attributed  to  St  Paul  in  his  missionary 
addresses  :  "The  times  of  this  ignorance  God  overlooked" 
(Acts  xvii.  30)  ;  "  Who  in  the  generations  gone  by  suffered 
all  the  nations  to  walk  in  their  own  ways"  (xiv.  16). 
Nor  does  the  following  context  of  the  latter  passage  in 
the  least  affect  my  contention  that  the  "election  of  grace" 
is  exceptional — a  sort  of  Gulf  Stream  amidst  the  weltering 
chaos  of  the  pre-Christian  world.  For  though  God  "left 
not  himself  without  witness,"  that  witness  was  made  at 
last  effective  only  in  and  by  "  the  election  of  grace." 

But  divine  order  is  universal  ;  and  Jesus  himself 
recognised  that  it  regulated  the  rising  of  the  sun,  the 
descent  of  the  rain,  the  fall  of  the  sparrow,  and  the 
numbering  of  the  very  hairs  of  our  head.  Christianity, 
however,  left  it  to  philosophers,  and  especially  to  one  of 
Jewish  race,  born  late  in  the  Christian  centuries,  to  show 
how  the  real  divine  order,  eternal,  all-embracing,  all- 
permeating,  directing  the  thoughts  of  a  Shakespeare  as 
well  as  the  dust  eddies  on  a  summer  road,  is  not  only 
consistent. with,  but  is  essential  to,  the  noblest  morals. 
With  that  grand  doctrine,  however,  we  are  not  concerned 
here,^  except  to  suggest  that  it  contrasts  favourably  with 


^  But  I  may  refer  to  my  Handbook  to  the  Ethics  of  Spinoza  (Archibald 
Constable  &  Co.,  Ltd.),  in  which  I  endeavour  to  show  that  the  spontaneity 
of  actions  rising  from  the  true  self  fully  compensates  for  the  surrender 
of  an  impossible,  causeless  action  or  personal  caprice. 


"  BELIEVE,  AND  YOU  SHALL  BE  SAVED  "  243 

the  partial  and  capricious  scheme  of  election  and  pre- 
destination by  which  the  Pauline  school  endeavoured  to 
account  for  the  Gentile  usurpation  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  But,  what  is  of  more  consequence,  perhaps,  is  the 
danger  which  the  experience  of  many  centuries  has  proved 
so  serious,  that  the  lower  interpretation  of  salvation  by 
faith — that  is,  safety  by  mere  belief — together  with  the 
corollaries  found  necessary  to  account  for  the  unbelief  of 
Israel  —  would  relax  the  nerves  of  moral  efFort  by  an 
exaggerated  emphasis  on  the  exhortation  we  have  so 
often  heard,  even  in  our  own  times,  "  Only  believe,  and 
you  shall  be  saved." 

Indeed,  this  danger  is  recognised  within  the  compass  of 
the  New  Testament  Canon  itself.  For  in  the  epistle  attri- 
buted to  St  James,^we  find  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  belief 
flouted  and  rebuked  :  "  Wilt  thou  know,  O  vain  man, 
that  faith  without  works  is  dead  ?"  The  writer's  selection 
of  Abraham's  projected  human  sacrifice  as  one  of  the 
partriarch's  saving  works  was  natural  enough  in  his  day, 
though  to  us  it  only  suggests  an  ancient  fetishism.  But 
otherwise  he  shows  a  surprising  anticipation  of  the  modern 
spirit  in  his  total  repudiation  of  the  doctrine  that  belief 
in  a  supposed  statement  of  fact  could  assure  the  believer 
of  salvation  :  "  Thou  believest  there  is  one  God  ;  thou 
doest  well  ;  the  devils  also  believe  and  tremble."  Surely, 
on  the  assumption  of  the  writer  that  hell  foresaw  the 
triumph  of  Jesus,  the  same  incisive  satire  is  applicable  to 


^  If  we  could  suppose  that  this  plain,  practical  and  almost  non-theological 
epistle  had  been  written  by  the  James  to  whom  Hegesippus  attributed  the 
callosities  of  a  camel  through  perpetual  kneeling  in  the  Temple,  it  would 
seem  a  curious  Nemesis  that  the  Judaising  leader  who  induced  St  Paul 
to  play  the  hypocrite  in  Jerusalem  should  live  to  see  all  his  schemes 
of  compromise  dissipated  by  the  disciples  of  the  man  whom  he  had 
entrapped. 


244  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

the  lower  conception  of  faith  already  quoted  from  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  :  "  Thou  believest  in  thine  heart 
that  God  hath  raised  Jesus  from  the  dead  "  ;  thou  doest 
well ;  "  the  devils  also  believe  and  tremble."  Whether 
this  was  one  of  the  Pauline  peculiarities  mentioned  by  the 
writer  of  2  Peter  as  "  things  hard  to  be  understood,  which 
they  that  are  unlearned  and  unstable  wrest,  as  they  do 
also  the  other  Scriptures,  unto  their  own  destruction,"  we 
cannot  tell.  But  whether  wrested  or  not,  it  is  certain 
that  nothing  went  further  to  mar  the  sweet  influences  of 
the  Synoptic  Gospels  and  the  lessons  of  love,  purity,  and 
noble  aspiration  contained  in  the  epistles,  than  this  un- 
fortunate doctrine  of  salvation  by  belief.  Because,  as  the 
late  Mr  Lecky  said  :  "The  destiny  theologians  represented 
as  awaiting  the  misbeliever  was  so  ghastly  and  so  appalling, 
as  to  render  it  almost  childish  to  lay  any  stress  upon  the 
earthly  suffering  that  might  be  inflicted  in  extirpation  of 
error.    ^ 

With  the  persecution  of  the  early  Christians  by  the 
pagan  empire  we  have  nothing  to  do.  As  Mr  Lecky 
and  others  have  clearly  shown,  it  was  not  a  persecution 
for  belief  or  disbelief,  but  for  disloyalty  to  certain 
immemorial  traditions  on  which  the  safety  of  the 
commonwealth  was  supposed  to  depend.  The  attitude 
of  the  Roman  rulers  toward  the  Christians  was  very  much 
that  of  Oliver  Cromwell  toward  the  Catholics  :  "  As  for 
the  people,  what  thoughts  they  may  have  in  matters  of 
religion  in  their  own  breasts  I  cannot  reach  ;  but  shall 
think  it  my  duty,  if  they  walk  honestly  and  peaceably, 
not  to  cause  them  in  the  least  to  suffer  for  the  same  ; 
and  shall  endeavour  to  walk  patiently  and  in  love  toward 
them  to  see  if  at  any  time  it  shall  please  God  to  give 

^  History  of  European  Morals^  vol.  i.  p.  421. 


MISERABLE   CONSEQUENCES  245 

them  another  or  a  better  mind."  But  the  open  practice 
of  the  Roman  ritual  he  could  not — I  do  not  say  would 
not — allow,  because  of  the  inevitable  political  disturbance 
it  must  involve.  "  I  meddle  not  with  any  man's 
conscience,"  he  wrote  to  the  assembled  priests  of 
Clonmacnoise  ;  "  but  if  you  mean  a  liberty  to  exercise  the 
Mass,  I  judge  it  best  to  use  plain  dealing  and  to  let  you 
know  that  where  the  Parliament  of  England  have  power 
that  will  not  be  allowed  of." 

A  miserable  conclusion  1  But,  with  due  change  of 
terms,  it  represents  very  much  the  attitude  of  the 
persecuting  emperors  toward  the  early  Church.  A 
government  which  tolerated  the  rites  of  Mithra,  the 
worship  of  Isis  and  Serapis,  and  many  other  forms  of 
Eastern  religions  entirely  foreign  to  Rome,  was  not 
likely  to  be  disturbed  by  the  rise  of  a  new  Oriental  sect. 
But  the  difficulty  was  that  this  new  sect  would  not 
honour  the  ancestral  gods  of  Rome,  as  all  the  other  sects 
did.  To  the  Jews,  indeed,  a  special  privilege  had  been 
allowed  ;  because  they  were  supposed  to  have  their  own 
tribal  god,  and  as  foreigners  they  were  allowed  to  confine 
their  devotions  and  worship  to  him.  But  the  Christians 
were  rapidly  gathering  in  slaves,  freedmen,  tradespeople, 
and  a  few  men  and  women  of  higher  rank.  And  that 
this  increasing  multitude  should  refuse  to  honour  Rome's 
old  gods  even  by  throwing  a  few  grains  of  incense  on  an 
altar  was  regarded  as  an  omen  pregnant  with  divine 
displeasure,  and  which  might  mean  the  ruin  of  the  empire. 
In  addition,  the  Church  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  secret 
society  such  as  the  imperial  government  always  suspected, 
and  this  increased  the  distrust  and  hatred  excited  by 
refusal  to  honour  the  ancient  gods.  If  Christians  could 
have  followed  in  Rome  the  temporising  policy  advised  by 


246  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

James  when  the  prejudices  of  the  Jerusalemites  were 
concerned,  or  if  they  could  have  followed  the  example  of 
the  converted  Naaman,  who  bowed  himself  in  the  House 
of  Rimmon,  and  by  "  occasional  conformity "  kept  his 
place,  no  Roman  emperor  would  have  dreamed  of 
inquiring  into  their  beliefs. 

Very  different  were  the  persecutions  of  Christians  by 
Christians.  For  in  this  melancholy  history,  whether 
Gnostics,  or  Quartodecimans,  or  Nestorians,  or  Arians, 
or  in  their  turn  Trinitarians,  incurred  condemnation,  it 
was  simply  their  beliefs  that  constituted  their  crime — a 
crime  punished  in  the  unestablished  Church  by  malignant 
excommunication  and  unchristian  hate,  but  still  more 
cruelly  avenged  when  the  established  Church  was  able  to 
wield  the  sword.  While  readily  allowing  that  the 
Christian  virtues  to  which  we  shall  soon  turn  with  relief 
were  practised  in  many  an  obscure  home  during  the 
sanguinary  century  that  followed  the  Constantinian 
establishment  of  the  Church,  the  readers,  whether  of 
the  contemporary  Church  historians,  such  as  Socrates,  or 
their  later  interpreters,  such  as  Milman,  are  often  inclined 
to  lay  down  the  book  with  disgust  at  the  repeated  orgies 
of  envy,  hatred,  and  all  uncharitableness,  often  merging 
in  violence  and  murder,  which  constitute  the  Church 
history  of  those  days.  What  the  Paulicians  suffered  we 
have  already  seen,  and  also  the  fate  that  overtook  their 
remote  spiritual  descendants  in  Southern  France.  Foxe's 
Book  of  Martyrs  has  made  our  childhood  familiar,  more 
or  less,  with  the  long  roll  of  sufferers  for  opinion.  And 
when  Foxe  fell  silent,  still  the  unutterable  mischief 
went  on.  Believers  in  bishops  persecuted  disbelievers 
in  bishops,  and  presbyters  denounced  or  even  murdered 
priests.       Even    in    our    own    day,  what   are   called   the 


THE   SILVER   LINING   TO   THE   CLOUD  247 

"  Blasphemy  Laws "  are  unexpunged  from  the  statute 
book ;  and  the  nineteenth  century  saw  conscientious, 
earnest,  and  noble-minded  men,  full  of  the  Christian 
virtue  of  "  charity,"  suffer  a  felon's  punishment  because 
they  denied  that  the  Bible  was  the  "  word  of  God."  I 
will  not  quote  again  the  indignant  words  of  Lucretius  ; 
for  it  was  not  religion  that  wrought  these  ills.  No  ; 
it  was  the  irrational  and  immoral  doctrine,  taught  first 
apparently  by  St  Paul,  that  salvation  depends  on  "  the 
will  to  believe  "  an  unproved  fact. 

Nevertheless,  it  remains  indisputably  true  that  not- 
withstanding this  unfortunate  confusion  between  loyalty  of 
soul  and  mere  belief  in  an  alleged  fact,  the  first  Christian 
missionaries  did  carry  with  them  through  the  world 
not  merely  an  odour  of  sanctity,  but  of  goodness  and  love 
and  "truth  in  the  inward  parts,"  which,  in  the  end, 
sweetened  even  theology,  and  purified  the  air  for  the 
coming  Kingdom  of  God  or  Republic  of  Man.  I  believe 
that  mutual  love,  brotherhood,  or  "  charity  "  ^  is  the  oldest 
tradition  of  the  Church,  older  indeed  than  the  imagination 
or  myth  of  the  Resurrection,  and  dating  from  the  pre- 
natal state  of  the  Church,  when  it  existed  only  as  a 
company  of  Christ's  disciples  irradiated  by  the  boundless 
human  love  breathing  through  every  word  and  manifest 
in  every  deed  of  their  Lord.  There  are  surely  few 
passages  in  the  Gospels  more  suggestively  touching  than 
Matt.  ix.  36  and  its  parallel  in  Mark.  Combining  the 
two  passages,  we  gather  that  in  the  course  of  his  itinerancy, 
after  some  time  of  comparative  seclusion  with  the  twelve, 

1  I,  for  one,  regret  the  adoption  of  "love"  in  the  Revised  Version  of 
I  Cor.  xiii.  instead  of  "charity."  The  EngHsh  "love"  includes  epws  as  well 
as  aydirr] ;  but  "  charity,"  by  long  association  with  that  prose  lyric,  has  come 
to  represent  the  brotherly  affection  which  all  men  should  have  for  each 
other. 


248  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

Jesus,  in  the  windings  of  his  way,  was  suddenly  confronted 
with  a  tired,  wayworn  multitude  of  the  poorest  Galileans, 
who  had  for  many  hours,  or  perhaps  some  days,  been  seek- 
ing him  in  vain.  "  And  Jesus,  when  he  came  out  " — from 
the  mountain  recess  to  which  he  had  retired — "  saw  much 
people,  and  was  moved  with  compassion  toward  them, 
because  they  were  harassed,  and  threw  themselves  down,^ 
as  sheep  having  no  shepherd :  and  he  began  to  teach  them 
many  things." 

The    socialism    of    modern    days    has    quickened    the 
faculties  which  enable  us  to  picture  the  scene.     Not  that 
there    is    any  justification   for   supposing  the  lot  of   the 
Galilean  peasant  to  have  been  comparable  to  that  of  the 
slum-dwellers  in  London,  New  York,  or  Chicago.     But, 
at  any  rate,  these  seekers  after  the  prophet  had  never  any 
superfluity,    and    had     evidently    now    made    insufficient 
provision  for  themselves  and  famihes  during  the  pursuit. 
And  so  there  were  mothers  trying  to  hush  children  crying 
through  weariness  and  hunger,  and  others  nursing  with 
self-forgetful    patience    the    sick    ones    for   whom    the 
prophet's  aid  was  craved.     And  there  were  fathers  who 
had  carried  through  the  heat  of  the  day  an  afflicted  or 
"  demoniac  "  son.     And  few,  if  any,  were  there  who  did 
not  bear  traces  of  the  anxiety  which  must  needs  recur 
again  and  again  when  the  margin  of  earnings  beyond  bare 
subsistence  is  always  in  danger  of  shrinking  to  a  mathe- 
matical   line.     It    is    true,    indeed,    that   no   one   with  a 
genuinely  human    heart    could   be  unmoved   by  such  a 
spectacle — that  is,  no  one  but  a  despot,  or  a  case-hardened 
official  convinced  that  the  glories  of  imperialism  are  well 

1  The  Revised  Version  has  "  distressed  and  scattered."  It  is  not  for  me 
to  pit  myself  against  such  authority,  but  the  marginal  translation  in  the 
Authorised  Version  has  much  to  support  it. 


JESUS   THE   SOCIALIST  249 

worth  the  price  of  human  misery.  But  the  distinctive 
note  of  the  compassion  excited  in  the  heart  of  Jesus  was 
the  feeling  that  something  must  be  done,  that  the  world 
had  got  to  be  saved,  and  that  no  suffering  on  his  part 
was  too  great  to  endure  for  such  a  redemption. 

Here,  then,  was  the  fount  and  prototype  of  that  "  en- 
thusiasm of  humanity"  so  justly  celebrated  in  Ecce 
Homo  as  the  chief  practical  characteristic  of  Christianity. 
And  in  spite  of  all  the  immeasurable  mischief  wrought  by 
those  passages  of  the  Pauline  writings  which  degrade 
salvation  by  faith  into  salvation  by  opinion,  this  brotherly 
love,  this  "  charity "  in  the  highest  sense,  has  never 
utterly  forsaken  the  Church,  even  in  that  Churches  worst 
paroxysms  of  theological  delirium.  The  Pauline  Epistles 
themselves  every  now  and  then  drop  their  theosophy  and 
sparkle  with  a  bright,  pure  love  of  man.  The  dismal 
chapters  on  election  and  reprobation  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans  are  suddenly  and  strangely^  succeeded  by  a 
short  lesson  on  practical  morality  incomparably  superior 
to  the  "Ten  Commandments."  The  principles  of  a  sane 
and  practicable  sociaHsm  are  briefly  laid  down  by  the 
reference  to  the  body  with  many  members  and  only  one 
interest.  Love  without  dissimulation  is  the  crown  of 
all  ;  and  the  kindly  affections  of  life  are  to  be  "  human 
nature's  daily  food."  But  perhaps  we  can  detect  with 
more  confidence  the  hand  of  St  Paul  himself  in  the 
Epistles  to  the  Corinthians.  In  i  Cor.  xii.  the  apostle 
has  been  insisting  on  the  beauty  and  practical  value  of 
the  eternal  principle  of  oneness  in  difference,  and  urging 
that  all  petty  jealousies  about  diversities  of  gifts  should 
be  merged  and  quenched  in  the  social  spirit  that  makes 

1  So  suddenly  and  strangely  that  we  instinctively  suspect  the  joining 
in  here  of  some  other  document  of  a  very  different  origin  and  nature. 


ISO  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

us  members  one  of  another.  But  as  he  warmed  to  his 
work  his  heart  glowed,  and  the  lambent  flame  of  that 
brotherly  love  which  was  the  open  secret  of  Jesus  all 
but  kindled  him  into  song. 

"  Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels, 
And  have  not  charity, 
I  am  become  as  sounding  brass,  or  a  tinkling  cymbal. 
And  though  I  have  the  gift  of  prophecy. 
And  understand  all  mysteries,  and  all  knowledge  ; 
And  though  I  have  all  faith,  so  that  I  could  remove  mountains, 
And  have  not  charity, 
I  am  nothing." 

It  is  needless  to  quote  the  rest  of  this  prose  lyric.  For 
our  chief  point  is  that,  if  not  the  very  man,  at  least  the 
same  school  of  thought  which  made  belief  in  the  resur- 
rection of  Jesus  a  passport  to  heaven,  here  declares  that 
not  only  such  a  belief,  but  even  the  faith  of  Abraham 
goes  for  nothing  unless  sanctified  by  brotherly  love. 

And  this  must  be  borne  in  mind  amidst  all  the  be- 
wilderment caused  to  us  by  St  Paul's  retention  of  Rabbi- 
nical methods  of  word-play  and  forced  allegory  in  his 
ministry  of  the  Gospel.  Nay,  not  even  his  theosophy, 
which  is  on  a  higher  level,  should  obscure  to  us  the  fact 
that  the  deepest  spring  of  his  religious  enthusiasm  was 
not  the  supernatural  glory  of  Jesus,  but  his  love,  and  the 
love  that  it  begot.  For,  indeed,  though  St  Paul  and  his 
disciples  wrote  more  even  than  "  St  John  the  Divine " 
and  the  Alexandrian-Ephesian  school  about  the  eternal 
Christ,  yet,  as  we  have  seen,  he  counts  the  understanding 
of  such  mysteries  as  nothing  unless  it  be  sanctified  by 
brotherly  love.  In  many  a  passage  of  the  Epistles  to  the 
Corinthians,  Galatians,  and  Thessalonians,  love  rather 
than  community  of  belief  is  seen  as  the   bond  of  teacher 


LOVE   THE   FULFILLING   OF   THE   LAW  251 

and  taught.  Even  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatiars,  which 
was  apparently  written  to  recall  that  fickle  people  to  the 
true  doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith  without  the  works  of 
the  law,  we  find  that  among  the  enun.erated  "  fruits  of 
the  Spirit'*  (v.  22.)  love  comes  first,  and  "joy,  peace, 
long-sufFering,  gentleness,  goodness  "  all  take  precedence 
of  faith.  However  the  order  of  thought  may  be  explained 
in  an  epistle  of  such  special  purpose,  at  any  rate  it  shows 
that  brotherly  love  and  its  associated  virtues  were  always 
near  to  the  heart  of  the  Apostle  as  the  very  core  and 
substance  of  the  Gospel.  Indeed,  he  was  to  the  churches 
more  as  a  father  or  a  brother  than  as  a  missioner  or  priest. 
And  if  we  turn  to  the  one  personal  letter  which  is  probably 
genuine — that  to  Philemon — we  find  every  verse  instinct 
with  the  tender  and  loving  relations  that  constituted  the 
strongest  bond  of  the  infant  Church.  It  is  true,  Christi- 
anity did  not  directly  abolish  slavery  ;  though,  by  ignoring 
it  within  the  communion,  it  made  the  permanence  of 
such  an  institution  impossible.  But  when  a  Christian 
apostle  could  write  of  a  restored  slave  as  his  "  son  whom 
he  had  begotten  in  his  bonds,"  and  could  request  of  the 
deserted  master  that  runaway  servant's  reception  "  not  now 
as  a  servant,  but  above  a  servant,  as  a  brother  beloved," 
the  doom  of  slavery  was  already  sealed. 

It  may  of  course  be  said  with  plausibility  that  this  large 
charity,  this  brotherly  love,  was  limited  to  the  brethren  in 
communion  with  the  Church,^  while  if  anyone  neglect  to 
hear  the  Church  he  was  to  be  not  a  brother,  but  "  a  heathen 
man  "  and  an  alien.     But  in  spite  of  the  perverse  com- 


^  The  words  of  Matt,  xviii.  17  cannot  of  course  have  been  spoken  by 
Jesus,  for  there  was  no  "  church" — iKK\r}<ria — in  the  apostolic  sense  of  the 
word  in  his  day.  The  passage  therefore  represents  the  feeling  of  the 
age  of  the  Epistles. 


252  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

merits  of  Roman  writers,  who  confounded  the  gloomy 
tribal  pride  of  the  Jews  with  the  bright  brotherly  love  of 
the  Christians,  there  is  much  reason  to  believe  that  con- 
verts to  the  new  religion  were  often  first  attracted,  not  only 
by  the  ardour  of  affection  within  the  fold,  but  also  by  the 
universal  charity  by  which  the  followers  of  the  Christ 
sought  to  reflect  the  divine  love  said  to  be  embodied  in 
him.  For  it  was  not  the  Church  only,  but  mankind  at 
large,  that  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  had  in 
view  when  he  dwelt  on  the  love  of  God  for  sinners,  and 
the  extension  of  "  the  righteousness  of  one  "  ^  to  all  men 
unto  justification  of  life.  But  in  later  Epistles,  such  as 
cannot  with  any  confidence  be  attributed  to  St  Paul  him- 
self, yet  are  certainly  inspired  by  his  teaching,  the  doctrine 
of  the  new  humanity  "  where  there  is  neither  Greek  nor 
Jew,  circumcision  nor  uncircumcision.  Barbarian,  Scythian, 
bond  nor  free,  but  Christ  is  all  and  in  all,"  is  always  as- 
sociated with  earnest  exhortations  to  peace,  long-suffering, 
kindness,  "  and  above  all "  charity,  which  is  the  bond  of 
perfectness. 

Even  the  eccentric  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  so  much 
taken  up  with  profitless  speculations  on  theosophy  and  a 
world  catastrophe,  after  announcing  that  "  our  God  is  a 
consuming  fire,"  immediately  adds,  "  Let  brotherly  love 
continue.  Be  not  forgetful  to  entertain  strangers.  .  .  . 
Remember  them  that  are  in  bonds  as  bound  with  them  : 
and  them  which  suffer  adversity  as  being  yourselves  also 

1  With  all  deference,  I  cannot  accept  the  Revised  Version  here.  The 
construction  of  evos  SiKKitLfxaros  ought  surely  to  be  governed  by  €vos 
&vepd!)irov  TrapairTWfjLaros  in  the  parallel  line  of  the  verse.  It  was  natural  to 
drop  the  avOpdJirov  in  the  second  phrase  ;  it  is  inevitably  supplied  from  the 
first ;  besides,  "  one  righteousness "  hardly  makes  sense.  The  whole 
passage  turns  on  the  contrast  between  the  two  men — the  Adam  and 
the  Christ. 


SOME  LIMITATIONS  OF  CHRISTIAN  LOVE  253 

in  the  body."  The  charge  of  a  brotherly  love  limited  to 
the  communion  of  the  Church  is  perhaps  better  founded 
in  the  case  of  the  Petrine  and  Johannine  Epistles  than  in 
that  of  the  Pauline.  But  i  Pet.  ii.,  though  its  refer- 
ences to  the  outside  world  are  comparatively  cold,^  yet 
overflows  with  a  passion  of  love,  and  will  hear  of  no  de- 
fence against  persecution  other  than  a  loyal,  loving  life. 
"  For  so  is  the  will  of  God,  that  by  well-doing  ye  may 
put  to  silence^  the  ignorance  of  foolish  men."  The 
Epistles  attributed — and  with  much  probability — to  the 
unknown  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  bear  abundant 
testimony  to  the  prevalence  of  an  intense  mutual  affection 
among  Christians  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  second  century. 
But  these  brief  writings  are  somewhat  too  suggestive  of 
the  mutual  feeling  that  binds  together  the  members  of 
a  secret  society  or  mystery  rather  than  of  the  love  of  man. 
"  Marvel  not,  my  brethren,  that  the  world  hate  you.  We 
know  that  we  have  passed  from  death  unto  life  because 
we  love  the  brethren."  "The  brethren,"  observe,  not 
the  world.  And  in  the  same  sense  we  must  probably  in- 
terpret the  words,  "  He  that  loveth  not  his  brother  whom 
he  hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God,  whom  he  hath  not 
seen  ? "  But  these  observations  do  not  in  the  least  weaken 
what  has  been  said  about  the  enormous  influence  of 
brotherly  love  in  fostering  Christianity  amid  the  ten 
thousand  hostile  forces  which  threatened  its  earliest  years. 
"  There  has  probably  never  existed  on  earth,"  says  Mr 
Lecky,  "  a  community  whose  members  were  bound  to  one 
another  by  a  deeper  or  purer  aflFection  than  the  Christians 
in  the  days  of   their  persecution.     There   has    probably 

1  E.c^.,  "  Honour  all  men  ;  love  the  brotherhood  ;  fear  God  ;  honour  the 
king." 

2  <j)ifiodv,  literally  "muzzle"  or  "gag." 


254  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

never  existed  a  community  which  exhibited  in  its  dealings 
with  crime  a  gentler  or  more  judicious  kindness,  which 
combined  more  happily  an  unflinching  opposition  to  sin 
with  a  boundless  charity  to  the  sinner,  and  which  was  in 
consequence  more  successful  in  reclaiming  and  transform- 
ing the  most  vicious  of  mankind."  ^ 

And,  in  spite  of  the  bitterness  of  theological  disputes, 
that  spirit  has  survived.  I  have  known  converts  from 
Protestantism  to  the  Catholic  communion  declare  that 
what  impressed  them  most  of  all  in  their  new  surround- 
ings was  the  fervour  of  love  that  breathed  there.  The 
enormous  expansion  of  the  Salvation  Army  has  certainly 
been  due  not  merely  to  the  exceptional  organising  genius 
of  its  venerable  founder,  but  also  to  the  love  for  all  out- 
casts, sufferers,  and  sinners  with  which  he  inspired  his 
followers  from  the  first.  Whatever,  then,  may  have 
been  the  defects — and  they  are  many — in  the  relation  of 
the  Bible  to  morals,  at  least  the  Christian  Scriptures, 
notwithstanding  the  terrible  evils  wrought  by  the  doctrine 
of  salvation  by  belief,  have  given  to  brotherly  love  a 
width  and  depth  of  interpretation  which  has  enabled  it 
to  survive  even  sectarian  hate,  and  which  might  yet 
establish  "peace  on  earth  and  good-will  to  men." 

But  this  special  intensity  of  brotherly  love  was  not  the 
only  emphasised  moral  virtue  that  gave  character  to  the 
earliest  Church.  I  do  not  think  it  essential  to  my  pur- 
pose to  enter  on  any  general  discussion  of  early  Church 
morals,  or  their  influence  upon  the  Roman  Empire.  The 
subject  was  most  impartially  and  admirably  treated  by 
Mr    Lecky   in    his    History  of  European   Morals.     I    can 

1  History  of  European  Morals,  vol.  i.  p.  450.  The  intolerance 
deprecated  by  Mr  Lecky  in  the  immediately  following  context  has  been 
fully  acknowledged  and  explained  in  previous  pages  of  the  present  work. 


VERACITY  255 

but  respectfully  echo  his  judgment,  that  many  of  the 
moral  and  humanitarian  reforms  usually  attributed  to 
Christianity  had  already  been  begun  before  the  Church 
exerted  any  perceptible  influence  on  society.  Moreover, 
the  continuance  of  slavery,  exposure  of  infants,  gladi- 
atorial shows,  and  such  like,  long  after  the  Church  had 
gained  at  least  an  ecclesiastical  dominion,  suggest  that 
the  Bible  had  little  differentiating  influence.  Both  the 
growth  of  Christianity  and  the  improvement  of  manners 
seem  rather  to  have  been  results  of  the  same  natural  pro- 
cess of  evolution.  But  while  it  must  of  course  be  owned 
that  this  observation  is  true  also — to  a  certain  extent — of 
the  virtues  I  have  specially  selected  as  illustrations  of  the 
best  relations  of  the  Bible  and  morals,  it  is  not  incon- 
sistent to  urge  that,  for  reasons  already  given,  the  "  en- 
thusiasm of  humanity "  was  specially  indebted  to  the 
Church.  And  I  proceed  to  urge  that  this  equally  is 
characteristic  of  that  high  loyalty  to  truth  which  Carlyle 
used  to  call  veracity.  For  veracity  in  the  highest 
sense — truth  of  self,  truth  to  fact,  truth  to  God,^  truth 
in  thought,  in  word  and  in  act — had  never  been  so 
insisted  upon  before.  Catechisers  are  hard  put  to  it  to 
extort  a  prohibition  of  lying  out  of  that  most  imperfect 
code  the  "  Ten  Commandments."  For  the  words,  "  Thou 
shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbour," 
evidently  refer  only  to  legal  testimony  before  a  judge, 
and  leave  wholly  untouched  the  untruthfulness  of  ordinary 
talk,  and  false  statement  as  made  in  business  for  illicit  gain. 
Nor,  if  it  had  been  in  existence,  would  that  code  have 
interfered  with  the  ready  resort  to  lies  by  Abraham,  Isaac, 
and    Jacob   whenever  deceit  afforded  the  easiest  way  of 

^  /.^.,  the  sum  of  all  fact — but  such  a  conception  was  still  in  the  womb 
of  the  future. 


256  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

escape.  David  is  supposed  to  have  known  the  Command- 
ments. But  he  would  have  been  very  much  surprised  to 
hear  that  the  ninth  prohibited  his  convenient  lie  to 
Achish  after  his  "  road  "  or  raid  against  the  Geshurites, 
when  he  pretended  to  have  attacked  "  the  south  of  Judah  '* 
(i  Sam.  xxvii.  lo-i  i)  :  "And  David  saved  neither  man 
nor  woman  alive,  to  bring  tidings  to  Gath,  saying,  Lest 
they  should  tell  on  us,  saying.  So  did  David,  and  so  will 
be  his  manner  all  the  while  he  dwelleth  in  the  country  of 
the  Philistines."  So  complete  a  massacre  is  improbable, 
perhaps  impossible,  when  many  byways  of  escape  must 
have  been  open  to  the  young  and  active.  But  the  calm 
statement  of  the  writer  is  worth  noting  as  an  indication 
that  David  felt  himself  as  little  debarred  from  unprovoked 
massacre  by  the  sixth  commandment,  as  from  lying  by 
the  ninth. 

Gehazi's  lie  has  been  a  stock  subject  of  deprecatory 
comment  in  many  a  Sunday  school  lesson  ;  but  the 
children,  impressed  by  a  sense  of  his  wickedness,  have,  in 
proportion  to  their  intelligence,  been  surprised  and  hurt 
as  they  grew  up  to  find  that  Gehazi's  moral  weakness 
was  shared  by  many  Old  Testament  worthies  whom  they 
had  been  taught  to  reverence.  For  they  find  in  some 
curious  stories  of  Hebrew  folklore  that  prophetic  gifts 
are  by  no  means  inconsistent  with  a  lying  tongue.^  If 
concordances  may  be  trusted,  the  very  word  "truth" 
occurs  only  about  sixteen  times  in  all  the  Old  Testament 
books  preceding  the  Psalms  in  the  order  of  the  Authorised 
Version.     In  the  Psalms  it  occurs  with  quite  dispropor- 

1  I  Kings  xiii.  18  ;  2  Kings  viii.  10  (where  Elisha,  the  oflfended  master 
of  Gehazi,  is  the  instigator  of  a  lie  which  he  knew  meant  murder) ;  i  Kings 
xxii.  15  (the  withdrawal  on  pressure  is  no  justification);  but  see  further 
the  whole  passage,  especially  verses  22  and  23,  where  God  is  represented 
as  putting  a  lying  spirit  in  the  mouth  of  all  these  prophets. 


SPIRITUAL   TRUTH  257 

donate  frequency,  and  in  many  of  these  sacred  lyrics  it 
has  a  high  spiritual  and  moral  value.  But  the  collection 
formed  "  the  hymn-book  of  the  Second  Temple,"  and 
was  only  gradually  completed  ;  so  that  in  its  final  form, 
comprising  five  separate  books,  it  can  hardly  have  preceded 
the  Christian  era  by  more  than  one  hundred  years.  We 
are  not  surprised,  therefore,  to  find  in  these  songs  of 
Israel  many  anticipations  of  that  devotion  to  truth  which 
characterised  primitive  Christianity  in  it  purest  form. 
^^  Behold^  thou  desirest  truth  in  the  inward  parts''  (Ps.  li.  6). 
"  Lord,  who  shall  abide  in  thy  tabernacle  }  and  who  shall 
dwell  in  thy  holy  hill  ?  He  that  walketh  uprightly  and 
worketh  righteousness,  and  speaketh  the  truth  in  his  heart " 
(Ps.  XV.  I,  2). 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  examples  which  must  be 
familiar  to  everyone.  But  it  is  of  some  interest  to  note 
that  the  word  most  generally  used  for  "  truth "  in  the 
Psalms  and  prophets  is  a  form  of  the  root  which  yields 
"  amen,"  the  ceremonial  word  with  which  both  Jews  and 
Christians  have  responded  to  the  prayers  oflFered  in  the 
congregation.  It  is,  apparently,  a  verbal  adjective,^ 
expressive  of  confirmation,  and  it  has  this  significance 
because  the  unmodified  root  means  standing  fast,  firmness, 
stability.  No  doubt  it  is  dangerous  to  infer  the  literary 
or  ceremonial  significance  of  a  word  from  the  abstract 
significance  of  its  root.  Still,  taking  into  view  the 
general  usage  of  the  word  translated  "  truth "  in  the 
passages  referred  to,  it  seems  reasonable  to  believe 
that  to  the  latest  Jews  and  primitive  Christians  it 
meant  reality  as  distinguished  from  outward  show,  the 
divine  order  which  cannot  be  shaken.  I  shall  not  here 
enter  upon  the  question   whether  ultimate  truth,  that  is, 

1  Gesenius,  sub  voce. 

17 


258  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

reality  on  the  infinite  scale,  is  or  is  not  apprehensible  by- 
finite  thought.  For  there  is  not  the  slightest  need  for 
any  such  discussion  to  enable  us  to  appreciate  the  heroism 
with  which  large  numbers  of  the  early  Christians  endured 
appalling  tortures  and  death  rather  than  utter  a  word  or 
commit  a  ceremonial  act  which  would  contradict  their 
confession  of  Christ.  Whether  that  confession  expressed 
partly  a  relative  truth  and  partly  a  historical  delusion,  or 
whether,  from  the  point  of  view  of  philosophy  and  critical 
realisation  of  fact,  it  was  wholly  false,  in  any  case  the 
constancy  of  the  voluntary  sufferers  was  a  noble  example 
of  veracity  in  this  sense,  that  they  determined  at  all  costs 
to  be  true  to  themselves  and  to  their  conviction  of  the 
divine  order.  Now,  whatever  changes  may  have  taken 
place  in  theological  opinion — for  even  the  strictest  sects  of 
Christians  do  not  agree  with  those  martyrs  now^ — the 
present  conditions  of  both  Church  and  State,  which  make 
absolute  sincerity  a  bar  to  many  of  the  most  fruitful  forms 
of  public  service,  suggest  that  a  touch  of  the  martyrs' 
veracity  would  be  of  incalculable  value  in  our  own  day. 

^  E.g.^  the  martyrs  thought  the  world  was  speedily  coming  to  an  end  ; 
they  believed  in  exorcism  and  other  forms  of  contemporary  miracle. 
Moreover,  their  ideas  on  baptism  and  the  eucharist  are  certainly  not 
shared  now  by  any  except  the  Catholics  of  the  West  and  the  orthodox 
of  the  East.  But,  while  these  lines  are  written,  the  appearance  (15th  July 
1908)  of  the  venerable  Leo  Tolstoy's  magnificent  protest  against  the  legal 
murders,  tortures,  and  imprisonments  in  Russia  shows  that  human  nature 
is  as  capable  of  veracity  as  ever.  "It  is  impossible  to  live  so  !  I,  at 
any  rate,  cannot  and  will  not  live  so  !  This  is  why  I  write  this  and  will 
circulate  it  by  all  means  in  my  power,  both  in  Russia  and  abroad  ;  that 
one  of  two  things  may  happen — either  that  these  inhuman  deeds  may  be 
stopped,  or  that  my  connection  with  them  may  be  snapped,  and  I  may 
be  put  in  prison,  where  I  may  be  clearly  conscious  that  these  horrors  are 
not  committed  on  my  behalf ;  or  still  better — so  good  that  I  dare  not  even 
dream  of  such  happiness — that  they  may  put  on  me  as  on  those  peasants 
a  shroud  and  a  cap,  and  may  push  me  also  ofif  a  bench,  so  that  by  my 
weight  I  may  tighten  the  well-soaped  noose  round  my  old  throat." 


"THE   CLOUD   OF   WITNESSES"        259 

It  is  needless  to  give  instances  other  than  those 
mentioned  in  previous  chapters.  Popular  Christian 
story  is  full  of  them  ;  and  though  there  has  doubtless 
been  much  exaggeration,  especially  in  regard  to  the 
number  of  sufferers/  the  facts  left  unassailable  after  all 
criticism  are  quite  sufficient  to  establish  my  point  that, 
next  after  the  virtue  of  brotherly  love,  the  duty  of 
veracity  in  word  and  deed  was  the  most  distinctive 
moral  mark  of  the  primitive  Church.  Not  that  the  sense 
of  this  duty  was  novel.  For,  from  Regulus  to  Epictetus, 
Roman  story  has  constantly  recurrent  gleams  of  the 
heroism  it  can  inspire.  And  though  the  Greeks,  notwith- 
standing the  Stoics,  were  for  the  most  part  of  a  softer 
texture,  Socrates  was  not  alone  in  his  indifference  to  death 
when  veracity  was  concerned.  Further,  the  fierce 
fanaticism  of  the  Jews  after  their  law  had  become  a  fetish, 
produced  a  sort  of  heroism  which  we  cannot  but  respect, 
though  it  was  more  like  the  martyrdom  of  hate  than  the 
martyrdom  of  love.  We  are  not  here  dealing  with  modern 
times,  but  we  cannot  forget  that  the  Babi  sect  in  Persia 
has  shown  many  noteworthy  points  of  resemblance  to  the 
evolution  of  Christianity,  especially  in  the  almost  incredible 
power  of  voluntary  endurance  which  their  spiritual  veracity 
has  inspired. 

But  it  can  scarcely  be  denied  that  the  "  cloud  of 
witnesses  "  who  drowned  in  their  blood  the  rage  of  anti- 
Christian  persecutors,  were  characterised  by  an  enthusiasm 
of  veracity  keener  and  more  exalted  than  that  of  most 
other  devotees.     The  traditional  Roman  heroes,  such  as 


1  The  late  Mr  Lecky,  in  his  History  of  European  Morals^  has  given  at 
the  end  of  his  first  volume  perhaps  the  most  moderate,  impartial,  and 
accurate  estimate  of  the  extent  and  nature  of  the  persecutions. -j- Gibbon 
was  certainly  not  impartial. 


26o  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

Scaevola  and  Regulus,  in  their  brave  adhesion  to  their 
mission  or  their  word,  were  actuated  by  manly  honour. 
But  the  Christian  motive  was  as  far  above  the  sentiment 
of  honour  as  true  self-sacrifice  is  above  pride.  The  death 
of  Socrates  stands  alone  ;  and  in  his  cheerful  indifference 
to  everything  but  truth,  as  well  as  in  the  courage  that 
faced  an  unknown  beyond,  he  compels  a  sympathetic 
admiration  such  as  we  cannot  accord  to  a  fanatic  like 
Ignatius  of  Antioch,  bent  on  a  glorious  passage  to  supreme 
bliss.  Yet,  in  one  respect  at  least,  the  devotion  of  most 
of  the  Christian  martyrs  closely  resembled  that  of  Socrates, 
in  that  it  was  voluntary,  in  the  sense  that  they  could 
easily  have  escaped  had  conscience  allowed.  For  the 
sympathy  of  the  magistrates  was  often  with  them  rather 
than  with  their  accusers,  and  the  sprinkling  of  a  few 
grains  of  incense  on  an  altar  fire  before  the  Emperor's 
efiligy  would  have  secured  life  and  ease.  The  modern 
spirit  would  readily  have  interpreted  that  as  a  ceremony 
of  political  homage  rather  than  as  a  religious  act.  In  the 
case  of  Polycarp,  it  was  apparently  the  utterance  of  a 
prescribed  formula  with  an  unexpected  tone  and  application 
that  doomed  him  to  death.  "  Have  pity  on  thy  grey 
hairs,*'  pleaded  the  presiding  proconsul.  "  At  least  say, 
'  Down  with  the  atheists  ! '  '  Down  with  the  atheists  ! '  " 
cried  the  sturdy  old  man,  turning  toward  the  mob 
in  the  arena,  and  waving  his  hand  toward  them.  It 
is  said  also  that  he  lifted  his  eyes  to  heaven,  and  sighed, 
as  though  lamenting  their  spiritual  fate.  But  his 
traditional  discourtesy  to  Marcion,  whom  he  is  said  to 
have  hailed  as  "  the  first-born  of  Satan,"  makes  it 
probable  that,  while  sternly  truthful,  he  was  comparatively 
insensible  to  the  kindlier  graces  of  his  Master's  character, 
and  to  the  lessons  of  St  Paul  on  universal  brotherly  love. 


THE   REPUBLIC   OF    MAN  261 

Perhaps  the  large  and  lofty  motives  associated  with  the 
veracity  of  the  noblest  martyrs  lift  them  above  the  rank 
of  mere  witnesses  on  behalf  of  new  theological  doctrines, 
and  thus  differentiate  them  from  the  heroic  enthusiasts 
of  the  Babi  sect.  For  though  the  unexpected  delay  of 
Christian  hopes,  together  with  the  degradation  of  faith 
into  mere  belief,  led  to  a  total  transformation  and 
deformation  of  the  Church's  original  life,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  Christ's  religion,  in  its  earliest  form,  involved 
a  certainty  that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  at  hand.  But 
in  the  absence  of  any  human  sovereign — for  Christ  him- 
self was  to  "  deliver  up  the  kingdom  to  God,  even  the 
Father " — this  kingdom  of  God  was  equivalent  to  the 
republic  of  man,  the  universal  establishment  of  liberty, 
equality,  and  brotherhood  amongst  all  races  of  mankind.^ 
It  is  only  reasonable  to  think  that  so  grand  an  outlook 
imparted  a  distinctive  nobility  to  the  steadfastness  of 
martyrs  for  the  Christian  faith. 

The  melancholy  records  of  Church  history  after  the 
stimulus  of  persecution  was  removed,  and  the  mean 
intrigues  in  which  thousands  of  churchmen  have  been 
engaged  ever  since  for  the  acquisition  of  place  and  power 
and  wealth,  at  any  cost  of  hypocrisy  and  lies,  might  seem 
to  prove  that  this  inspiration  of  veracity  was  short-lived 
in  itself  and  barren  of  indirect  results.  But  this  would  be 
a    very  imperfect  judgment.     For    the  most  prominent 

1  It  is  true  that  in  i  Cor.  xv.,  which  I  have  quoted  above,  the  consum- 
mation is  that  "  God  may  be  all  in  all "  (verse  28).  But  it  is  not  as  a 
monarch  that  God  can  be  all  in  all.  I  do  not  suppose  that  St  Paul  was 
ever,  even  in  his  most  aberrant  moments,  a  conscious  Pantheist,  but  he 
said  things  that  implied  Pantheism,  and  this  is  one  of  them.  As  to  the 
universal  socialistic  republic  of  Man,  see  Rom.  xiv.  7-17;  Col.  i.  20, 
iii.  10,  II  ;  Eph.  ii.  14-32,  iii.  14-21,  iv.  13.  Several  of  these  passages 
are  meaningless  if  they  do  not  suggest  the  idea  of  a  universal  socialistic 
commonwealth  of  Man. 


262  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

dignitaries  of  the  Church  have  rarely  been  true  expositors 
of  its  life.  And  this  duty  of  loyalty  to  truth  at  any  cost 
has  again  and  again  seized  on  the  consciences  of  humble 
sectaries,  Paulicians,  Albigenses,  Lollards,  and  later  Pro- 
testants, to  whom  to  be  a  living  lie  was  more  intolerable 
than  death  by  fire.  It  must  be  confessed,  indeed,  that 
the  religious  rebellions  which  generated  this  spirit  were 
often  wanting  in  that  "  most  excellent  gift  of  charity,'* 
which  was  the  prime  and  all-moving  virtue  of  the 
earliest  Church.  Nevertheless,  the  primeval  tradition  of 
brotherly  love  could  not  be  wholly  erased  by  the  sternness 
of  a  pure  veracity.  And  now,  in  modern  days,  when  the 
Pauline  corruption  of  faith  into  opinion  is  being  drastically 
corrected  by  the  destruction  of  supernatural  beliefs,  the 
solvent  of  veracity  which  has  sapped  those  beliefs  is 
found  equally  to  dissolve  away  rotten  relics  of  feudalism, 
the  subordination  of  the  many  to  the  few,  the  recklessness 
of  selfish  profit-grabbing,  and  the  barriers  that  give  us 
divided  classes  instead  of  one  brotherhood.  I  for  one 
have  no  fear  that  socialism  can  ever  destroy  or  ignore  the 
individuality  essential  to  man.  But  if  it  sticks  to  truth 
and  avoids  shams,  it  can,  at  least,  revive  that  glorious 
dream  of  the  Pauline  school  of  one  new  manhood 
renewed  in  knowledge. 

Amidst  the  false  issues  raised  between  religion  and 
science  during  the  last  century ;,  one  debt  of  science  to 
religion  was  too  often  overlooked,  and  that  was  the 
enthusiasm  for  truth.  For,  notwithstanding  the  ample 
confession  already  made  of  the  hypocrisies  induced  by  the 
substitution  of  belief  for  faith  or  loyalty  of  soul,  and  also 
by  the  political  establishment  of  religion,  it  still  remains 
certain  that  the  original  Christian  enthusiasm  of  veracity 
outlived    such    corruptions,    and    like    an    underground 


MARTYRS   OF   SCIENCE  263 

stream  of  living  water  every  now  and  then  sparkled  into 
the  light  of  day.  At  any  rate,  it  is  a  fact  that  the  pioneers 
of  science,  in  the  darkest  age,  and  some  of  its  heroes  in 
later  days,  were  men  of  religion,  and  may  be  credited 
with  a  religious  obedience  to  the  apostolic  injunction  to 
follow  "  whatsoever  things  are  true." 

Roger  Bacon,  one  of  the  most  premature  of  the 
prophets  of  science,  did  not  indeed  enter  the  monastic 
life  till  he  had  reached  middle  age  ;  and  happier  would 
it  have  been  for  him,  perhaps,  if  he  had  died  a  layman. 
But  at  any  rate  he  thought  that  the  cloister  would  afford 
him  the  best  opportunities  for  pursuing  truth.  And 
though  he  was  cruelly  disappointed,  his  fate  does  not 
contradict,  but  rather  confirm  my  contention  that  the 
primitive  Christian  enthusiasm  for  veracity  reappeared  from 
time  to  time  in  the  heroes  and  martyrs  of  science.  For 
the  whole  tone  of  his  writings  suggests  a  reverent  and 
devout  soul  to  whom  truth  and  God  were  one.  Galileo, 
however  much  science  owes  to  him,  fails  to  illustrate  our 
present  point.  For  we  do  no  injustice  to  his  memory 
if  we  say  that  he  was  inspired  rather  by  love  of  knowledge 
than  of  truth.  And  though  none  of  us  may  be  sure 
enough  of  our  own  courage  to  think  of  his  recantation 
with  any  feeling  but  one  of  reverent  sympathy,  yet  the 
legendary  muttering  of  "  e  pur  si  muove^''  even  if  it 
were  true,  could  not  rank  him  with  the  martyrs  for 
truth. 

Copernicus,  a  Canon  of  the  Church,  and  Galileo's 
predecessor,  was  never  put  to  the  proof.  For,  with  the 
reticence  of  genuine  science,  he  delayed  the  publication 
of  his  imperfect  theory  of  the  solar  system  for  some 
thirty  years  after  he  had  formed  it.  And  perhaps, 
fortunately  for  himself,  he  was  on  his  deathbed  when  the 


264  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

book  at  last  appeared.  But,  at  any  rate,  his  laborious 
study  of  planetary  movements,  and  his  rejection  of  the 
cycles  and  epicycles  of  the  old  astronomy,  justify  us 
in  attributing  to  him  some  share  in  the  apostolic  aspira- 
tion after  "whatsoever  things  are  true."  Much  more 
illustrious  by  his  enthusiasm  for  veracity  was  Giordano 
Bruno,  another  churchman  of  the  sixteenth  century,  who 
dared  to  do  for  the  Copernican  theory  what  its  author 
did  not  live  to  do  himself.  He  was  of  sterner  stuff  than 
Galileo,  and  added  to  his  astronomical  heresy  the  still 
worse  guilt  of  protest  against  the  received  theology. 
His  murder  by  fire  in  1600  is  one  of  the  blackest  records 
of  ecclesiastical  wickedness.  It  is  some  consolation  that  his 
heroism  was  undoubtedly  inspired  by  that  love  of  truth  for 
its  own  sake  which  primitive  Christianity  had  taught. 

The  case  of  Kepler  is  more  complex  ;  for  he  frankly 
confesses  to  "  drawing  up  almanacks  with  predictions  "  in 
which  he  did  not  believe,  and  defends  his  conduct  on  the 
ground  that  "  it  is  more  honest  than  to  beg  his  bread." 
On  the  other  hand,  when  threatened  by  local  conflicts 
between  Catholic  and  Protestant  he  wrote  :  "  I  am  a 
Christian  attached  to  the  Augsburg  Confession  by  an 
earnest  examination  of  the  doctrine  ....  and  I  do  not 
know  how  to  play  the  hypocrite.  Religion  is  for  me  a 
serious  matter  which  I  dare  not  treat  with  lightness." 
Such  an  utterance  is  borne  out  by  the  religious  fervour 
with  which  in  words  already  quoted  he  proclaimed  his 
new  revelation  of  the  laws  of  planetary  motion.  Surely 
such  a  spirit  is  in  the  direct  line  of  descent  from  the 
brotherhood  of  simplicity  and  truth  that  formed  the  first 
nucleus  of  the  Church.  The  less  known  case  of  a 
Dominican  monk,  Thomas  Campanella,  born  in  1568,  a 
native  of  Calabria,  offers  perhaps  the  closest  parallel  which 


THOMAS   CAMPANELLA  265 

the  story  of  science  can  show  to  the  unconquerable 
endurance  of  the  Christian  martyrs.  His  ideas  evidently 
inclined  to  Pantheism.^  But  be  that  as  it  may,  neither 
sevenfold  tortures  of  the  rack,  nor  other  devilries  of  the 
Inquisition,  could  extort  from  his  lips  a  lie,  nor  could 
twenty-five  years  of  imprisonment  subdue  his  loyalty  to 
truth.  Yet  he  hved  after  all  to  see  his  writings  published.^ 
Let  us  hear  some  words  from  his  preface,  for  they  form 
a  fitting  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  so  far  as  this 
part  of  our  argument  is  concerned  : — 

"  Not  with  the  hope  of  gain  have  I  written,  as  do  most, 
but  persecuted  with  incessant  suffering.  Nor  am  I  driven 
by  fear, — I  whose  courage  did  not  fail  after  threefold  and 
fourfold  torments.  But  moved  only  by  the  love  of  Truth, 
I  offer  to  all  men  the  certainty,  not  of  ignorance  nor 
conventional  pretence,  but  of  religious  power  and  fact. 
For  this  power  and  fact  I  rest  partly  on  the  perceptions  of 
my  own  experience,  partly  on  careful  research  into  the 
experience  of  others,  partly  on  that  finer  sense  by  which 
humanity  is  beginning  to  scent  out  the  things  that  trans- 
figure it  to  a  height  of  glory  not  to  be  reached  by  logic."  ^ 

With  such  records  before  them,  how  can  nominal 
followers  of  him  whom  they  call  incarnate  truth  now 
tolerate  the  reservations  and  shifts  and  devices  by  which 
the  pretence    of  orthodoxy  is  maintained  ?     How  many 

1  This  is  certainly  suggested  by  passages  in  his  treatise  called  Atheism 
Overthrown^  where  he  denounces  those  who  "make  the  part  of  more 
worth  than  the  whole,"  and  compares  such  arrogance  to  that  of  "a 
parasitic  worm  ensconced  in  the  entrails  of  a  man,  and  counting  the  man 
as  nothing  compared  with  itself." 

2  A  disciple,  Adam  of  Saxony,  managed  to  smuggle  them  out  of  the 
prison,  and  they  were  published  in  Germany. 

3  For  the  translation,  such  as  it  is.  I  am  responsible  ;  and  as  said  before, 
I  am  venturing  to  quote  myself  in  an  obscure  little  book  with  the  nom-de- 
plume  of  "  H.  C.  Ewart,"  and  long  out  of  print. 


266  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

preachers  really  believe  the  supernatural  story  of  Man 
from  Adam  to  Christ,  although  they  declare  it  to  be  one 
consistent  whole  ?  How  many  trained  or  scholarly 
teachers  of  youth  themselves  believe  what  they  tell  their 
pupils  about  Noah,  and  Abraham,  and  Jacob,  and  Moses 
and  Joshua,  and  Samuel  and  David  ?  How  many  really 
hold  to  the  Virgin  Birth  of  Jesus  while  they  solemnly 
recount  it  ?  How  many  find  it  possible  to  picture  to 
themselves  as  actual  the  revival  of  the  corpse  of  Jesus  in 
the  tomb,  the  rolling  away  of  the  stone  by  angelic  might, 
the  passage  of  the  same  physical  body  of  "  bones  and 
flesh  "  through  a  solid  door,  the  consumption  of  "  broiled 
fish  and  honeycomb,"  and  then  the  flight  into  heaven  ? 
Granting  that  such  things  are  vaguely  believed — not 
realised — by  the  unthinking  multitude  to  whom  it  is  the 
duty  of  these  preachers  and  teachers  to  minister  truth, 
how  can  it  be  consistent  with  loyalty  to  God  to  speak 
and  act  in  the  most  sacred  relations  on  assumptions  which 
at  best  they  regard  as  only  half  true,  and  even  that  in 
some  non-natural  sense  ?  "  Economies  "  of  truth  in  the 
pulpit,  an  acted  part  at  the  altar,  insincerity  at  the 
teacher's  desk,  drag  down  the  moral  standard  of  our 
national  life.  And  yet,  conscious  as  we  are  of  the 
pretences  pervading  ecclesiastical  or  sectarian  professions 
of  belief,  we  affect  amazement  at  the  subordination  of 
honesty  to  greed  of  gold  in  the  secular  world  !  Surely 
the  two  phenomena  seem  closely  related  the  one  to  the 
other,  if  not  directly,  as  cause  and  effect,  at  least  indirectly 
as  aptitude  and  opportunity.  For  the  conscience  relaxed 
by  unreality  in  professed  religion  is  ready  for  any  chance 
to  play  the  knave  elsewhere. 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  in  these  words  I  admit  the  total 
failure  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  the  early  Church  to 


THE   NEW   AGE  267 

establish  amongst  men  an  awe  for  the  sacredness  of  truth. 
Not  so.  But  I  have  admitted  that  the  Pauline  school 
weakened  their  stern  teaching  on  the  duty  of  truth  at  all 
costs  in  word  and  deed  by  their  disastrous  error  in 
occasionally  confounding  faith  with  mere  opinion  or 
belief  of  fact.  And  I  have  endeavoured  conscientiously 
to  trace  some  of  the  fatal  results  of  this  mistake.  Yet 
this  is  quite  consistent  with  the  contention  that  loyalty 
of  soul  to  the  highest  truth  known  was,  not  indeed, 
exclusively,  but  specially  characteristic  of  primitive 
Christianity,  and  has  been  from  time  to  time  recurrent 
in  the  pioneers  of  science  and  of  religious  reform.  It  is 
a  comfort  and  a  joy  to  know  that  in  the  last  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century,  the  demand  for  the  sacrifice  of  dead  creeds  to 
living  truth  has  been  no  longer  as  the  "voice  of  one 
crying  in  the  wilderness."  But  whether  through  a 
"  Rationalist  Press  Association,"  or  through  a  "  New 
Theology,"  or  through  the  popularisation  of  the  results 
of  scholarly  examination  of  musty  manuscripts  or  buried 
records,  it  has  now  reached  a  power  and  a  volume  which 
neither  Church  nor  school  can  any  longer  disregard. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE    BIBLE    AND    SOCIAL    EVOLUTION 

The  factors  in  social  evolution  which  interest  us  most  are, 
perhaps,  culture  and  freedom.  And  by  culture  I  do  not 
mean  mere  scholarship,  but  that  condition  of  acquired 
knowledge,  skill,  perceptions,  and  habits  which,  in  any 
community,  measures  its  distance  from  the  lowest  known 
condition  of  human  beings.  Freedom  surely  carries  its 
own  interpretation  with  it.  For  though  it  is  paradoxical 
in  this  respect,  that  its  perfection  implies  limitation — since 
no  one  is  free  who  only  does  what  the  caprice  or  passion 
of  the  moment  suggests — yet  the  paradox  involves  no 
practical  difficulty.  For  we  all  know  that  while  a  life  of 
mere  selfishness  is  the  worst  of  all  slaveries,  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  constraints  necessary  to  an  ordered  society 
are  so  adopted  by  each  loyal  member  of  it  that,  while 
doing  what  others  wish,  he  does  also  what  he  himself 
desires. 

If,  in  the  above  definition  of  culture,  I  have  not  men- 
tioned law  or  art,  it  is  because  the  former,  being  essenti- 
ally custom,^  is  the  oflFspring    of    culture    and    freedom, 

1  1/6/105 ;  and  even  in  the  case  of  the  decrees  of  a  despot  or  Acts  of 
Parhament,  if  there  is  not  custom  at  the  back  of  them— or,  say,  pubUc 
opinion  or  prejudice— they  do  not  usually  survive. 

268 


CUSTOM,   ART,   AND   LITERATURE     269 

in  the  union  of  which  prepotency  belongs  now  to  the  one 
and  now  to  the  other.^  Nor  is  it  necessary  or  even 
possible  to  separate  art  from  culture  and  freedom,  of 
which  it  is  alternately  an  inspiration  and  a  product.  Thus, 
for  instance,  the  songs  of  Tyrtaeus  were  an  inspiration  of 
freedom,  while  the  Attic  drama  was  its  product.  Its  pro- 
duct, I  say,  because  the  wide  range  of  thought  and  criti- 
cism of  things  both  divine  and  human  would  have  been 
impossible  on  any  other  stage  than  that  of  a  free  common- 
wealth. Of  the  relation  of  the  Bible  to  religion  and 
morals  I  have  already  treated.  And  it  is  matter  for 
regret  that  many  so-called  "  freethinkers "  are  disposed 
to  excommunicate  all  who  cannot  ignore  religion  as  a 
fundamental  factor  in  the  forces  of  social  evolution  from 
prehistoric  animism  to  the  coming  Pantheism. 

Literature,  as  the  term  is  commonly  used,  includes  a 
great  deal  that  is  certainly  not  art,  and  much  that  is  dis- 
cordant with  morals.  But  the  whole  of  it  belongs  to 
culture  in  so  far  as  it  marks  the  distance  its  writers  and 
readers  have  travelled  from  the  lowest  condition  of  human 
beings.  Further,  to  culture  belongs  the  instinct  of  self- 
government,  the  elevation  of  taste,  the  evolution  of  the 
social  idea  from  its  dead  level  of  homogeneity  amongst 
savages  to  the  complex  co-ordination  of  individual  char- 
acters, powers,  and  functions  in  the  modern  free  State. 
Thus  the  value  of  any  sacred  book,  whether  in  the  Eastern 

^  E.g.  in  the  laws  which  sanctioned  the  burning  alive  of  a  wife  for  what 
was  called  "  petty  treason,"  the  prepotency  belonged  to  custom,  whereas 
in  the  laws  which  bind  the  husband  to  sustain  the  wife,  but  not  the  wife, 
however  rich,  to  sustain  the  husband  ;  which  make  the  husband  respon- 
sible for  the  debts  of  the  wife,  but  not  the  wife  for  the  debts  of  the  husband  ; 
which — in  recent  times — allow  a  wife  to  leave  her  husband  with  impunity 
but  allow  no  such  privilege  to  the  man, — and  several  other  laws  making 
women  a  privileged  class,  we  recognise  the  prepotency  of  moral  and 
intellectual  culture  over  custom. 


270  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

or  Western  world,  would  most  surely  be  determined,  at 
least  in  part,  by  its  influence  on  all  these  phases  of  culture. 
And  if  it  should  be  said,  as  indeed  it  has  been  said  both 
by  pundits  in  the  East  and  Church  dignitaries  in  the 
West,  that  the  supreme  contemplation  of  God,  or  the 
salvation  of  the  soul,  is  more  precious  than  any  or  all 
forms  of  "  secular  "  culture,  this  is  a  question  to  be  de- 
cided by  "  the  common  sense  of  most "  ;  and  it  is  being 
decided  now. 

Whether,  before  the  invention  of  printing,  the  filtra- 
tion of  Bible  literature  through  the  Church  gave  more 
culture  to  the  illiterate  multitude  of  Christians  than  the 
occasional  echoes  of  Homer  and  other  popular  poets  had 
given  to  the  untaught  multitude  in  heathen  times,  is  a 
question  on  which  opinions  may  differ.  But,  at  any  rate, 
considering  the  fact  that  Pauline  Christianity  was  part  of 
the  spiritual  and  social  evolution  by  which  a  new  age  was 
introduced,  it  seems  more  than  probable  that  this  indirect 
communication  of  the  Bible  to  the  people  imparted  a 
limited  culture  specially  adapted  to  the  needs  of  Europe 
and  Western  Asia  in  a  crisis  of  the  pilgrimage  of  man. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  danger  of  bibliolatry  is  only 
too  apparent  in  the  contemptuous  references  often  made 
by  Christian  authorities  to  the  uselessness  of  pagan  litera- 
ture since  access  to  the  Bible  had  been  secured  by  the 
Church.  Canon  LX.  of  the  Apostolical  Council,  as 
edited  by  Bail,  reads  thus  : — "  If  to  the  injury  of  laity 
and  clergy,  any  one  promulgates  in  the  Church  as  Holy 
Scripture  any  forged  books  of  impious  men,  let  him  be 
deposed."  ^  But  a  note  is  added  by  the  editor  which 
suggests    that    those    ancient    councils,    or    the    Church 

'  It  appears  to  be  assumed  that  this  was  exclusively  a  clerical  crime, 
since  "deponatur" — the  sentence  assigned — could  not  apply  to  laymen. 


ANTIPATHY  TO  SECULAR  LITERATURE  271 

opinion  which  their  unauthentic  records  represent,  were 
anxious  not  only  for  the  purity  of  Scripture,  but  also  for 
the  exclusion  of  all  other  literature.  For  there  a  curious 
and  impossible  decree  is  attributed  to  the  apostles,  the  only 
value  of  which  is  that  it  shows  the  tendencies  of  Christian 
opinion  at  the  time  of  the  forgery,  perhaps  late  in  the 
third  or  early  in  the  fourth  century.  The  decree  runs  as 
follows  : — 

"  Abstain  from  all  books  of  the  Gentiles.  For  what 
hast  thou  to  do  with  alien  books  or  laws  or  false 
prophecies,  which  indeed  often  divert  light-minded  men 
from  the  faith  ?  Or  what  dost  thou  find  lacking  in  the 
law  of  God,  that  thou  shouldst  betake  thyself  to  those 
fables  of  the  Gentiles  ?  For  if  thou  desirest  to  traverse 
matters  of  history,  thou  hast  the  (Books  of)  Kings ; 
if  philosophy^  and  poetry,  thou  hast  the  Prophets, 
and  Job,  and  the  author  of  Proverbs,  in  which  thou  wilt 
find  clearly  displayed  the  very  essence  of  poetry  and 
wisdom,  since  they  are  the  utterances  of  the  Lord  God, 
who  alone  is  wise.  Again,  if  thou  desirest  lyrics,  thou 
hast  also  the  Psalms  ;  while  if  thou  wishest  to  look  into 
the  origin  of  things,  thou  has  Genesis.  If  thou  desirest 
law  and  regulations,  thou  hast  the  glorious  law  of  God. 
Therefore  withhold  thyself  strenuously  from  all  alien 
literature  and  books  of  the  Devil."  ^ 

If  the  last  words  of  this  quotation  look  startling,  two 
considerations  may  help  to  mitigate  the  apparent  in- 
congruity. For,  firstly,  the  real  author  of  the  words  was 
probably   very    illiterate,    and    knew    but    little    of    the 


^  The  word  used  is  "  sophistica,"  but  obviously  the  classical  sense  was 
not  in  the  writer's  mind,  as  the  following  context  shows. 

2  "Ab  omnibus  igitur  externis  et  diabolicis  libris  vehementer  te 
contine." 


272  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

literature  he  assigned  to  the  Devil.  And  secondly,  in 
those  times,  as  well  as  amongst  the  Jews  of  the  time  of 
Christ,  the  Devil  was  believed  to  be  capable  of  appearing 
as  an  angel  of  light.  If  he  might  himself  heal  demoniacs 
in  order  to  discredit  miracles  wrought  by  holier  powers, 
he  might  certainly  also  inspire  the  production  of  works  of 
art  with  the  sinister  design  of  prejudicing  appreciative 
minds  against  the  more  sober  attractions  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  New.  And,  indeed,  though 
Manichaeism  was  always  thought  to  be  so  very  deadly  a 
heresy,  yet  the  early  Church,  as  well  as  some  later  and 
even  modern  Puritans,  were  more  Manichaean  than  they 
knew.  For  if  the  essential  error  of  that  heresy  consisted 
in  the  dualism  derived  originally  from  Zoroaster,  what 
could  be  more  akin  to  it  than  the  saying,  "  We  know  that 
we  are  of  God,  and  the  whole  world  lieth  in  the  evil 
one"?^  Whatever,  therefore,  was  not  of  "us"  must 
needs  be  of  the  Devil.  And  the  older  amongst  us,  who 
have  happily  lived  to  breathe  the  freer  air  of  the  new 
reformation,  can  well  remember  how,  in  the  earlier  half  of 
the  last  century,  a  precisely  similar  Manichaeism  was 
accounted  true  religion.  The  theatre,  dancing,  and  many 
harmless  sports,  however  purely  they  might  be  conducted, 
were  regarded  as  "  lying  in  the  Evil  One."  Nay,  the 
doctrine  was  constantly  maintained  that  the  good  deeds 
of  an  unregenerate  man  were  of  the  nature  of  sin. 

This  perverse  habit  of  mind  was  only  a  logical  applica- 
tion of  that  divorce  between  things  sacred  and  secular 
which  was  not  indeed  of  Christ,  but  was  one  of  the  first 
corruptions  of  the  early  Church,  and  which  was  confirmed 
and  enforced  by  an  unnatural  treatment  of  the  Bible.     I 

1  2  Cor.  xi.  14. 

'^  I  John  V.  19,  Revised  Version. 


UNNATURAL  TREATMENT  OF  SCRIPTURE  273 

say  unnatural  treatment,  rather  than  supernatural  awe. 
For,  making  due  allowance  for  the  necessary  ignorance 
of  even  the  most  learned  Fathers  of  the  Church  concerning 
the  vastness  of  the  universe  and  the  antiquity  of  Man, 
what  could  be  more  contrary  to  healthy  reason  and 
common  sense  than  this  undistinguishing  devotion,  not 
only  to  the  exceptional  spiritual  aspirations,  but  to  the 
mere  folklore  of  an  obscure  and  exclusive  tribe  ?  What 
blinding  of  the  judgment,  what  wilful  perversion  of 
obvious  facts  must  have  been  needed  before  well- 
informed  Christians  could  be  brought  to  regard  as  diviner 
than  Greek  poetry  and  philosophy  such  barbarisms  as  the 
Hebrew  myths  of  the  Deluge,  or  the  horrors  of  Lot*s 
story,  or  the  records  of  Jacob's  cowardly  dishonesty,  or 
of  Joshua's  appalling  massacres  ?  And  yet,  even  after  the 
Gospels  and  Epistles  had  established  themselves  as  "  holy 
writ,"  these  sickening  traditions  of  a  once  savage  tribe 
were  regarded  as  the  "  word  of  God  "  no  less  than  the 
very  "  Beatitudes "  themselves.  If  ever  the  term 
"  bibliolatry  "  can  be  fairly  used,  it  certainly  can  be  applied 
with  justice  to  a  state  of  mind  which,  treating  a  tribal 
literature  as  one  book,  forces  on  it  an  unreal  unity  as  well 
as  a  uniform  authority,  and  finds  the  Spirit  of  God  as 
manifest  in  the  Song  of  Deborah  as  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount.  It  was  this  habit  of  mind  which  prompted  the 
forgery  of  the  alleged  apostolic  decree  quoted  above  ; 
and,  in  forms  more  or  less  disguised,  that  habit  of  mind 
survived  till  the  century  in  which  we  were  born. 

The  effects  of  such  superstition  on  culture  were 
disastrous  and  cruel.  For  not  only  do  we  owe  to  it  the 
neglect  which  allowed  many  a  noble  work  of  heathen 
poets  and    philosophers    to    perish,  but    it    belittled  and 

perverted  the  mind  of  the  Church.     Augustine,  being  in 

18 


274  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

early  manhood  a  teacher  of  rhetoric,  was  deterred  many 
years  from  reading  the  Bible  because  of  what  he  con- 
sidered the  poverty  of  its  literary  merits  as  compared  with 
the  classics^  that  he  loved.  But  after  his  conversion  he 
gradually  approximated  to  the  state  of  mind  described 
above.  And  though  he  was  too  much  of  a  scholar  totally 
to  condemn  the  literature  of  the  pagans,  yet  his  dis-- 
courses  and  writings  always  seem  to  imply  that  for  the 
Christian  the  Bible  is  literature  enough.  Now,  the 
Greek  and  Roman  literature  embodied  the  whole  life 
of  two  great  groups  of  races.  And  though  these 
groups  of  races  were  very  inferior  in  numbers  to 
the  dimly  known  hordes  of  the  North,  and  the  still 
less  known  swarms  of  the  Far  East,  yet,  considering 
only  their  practical  influence  in  the  then  known  world, 
we  may  say  that  their  literature  embodied  the  life  of  the 
predominant  half  of  mankind.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Bible  presented  only  the  development  of  a  tribal  religion 
up  to  the  time  when  it  unfolded  the  outlines  of  a  world- 
wide organisation.  From  this  point  of  view  its  importance 
is  great  ;  and  it  is  most  unfortunate  that  many  rationalists 
of  a  certain  school  see  in  it  only  a  succession  of  frauds. 
But  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  Christians  did  not  realise 
the  true  interest  of  the  Bible,  and  chiefly  valued  it  as 
confirming  the  commission  of  the  Church.  Under  such 
circumstances,  it  was  inevitable  that  the  influence  of  the 
Bible  should  be  for  a  time  inimical  to  culture,  as  we  have 
defined  the  latter.  For  there  was  in  the  honour  done 
to  it  a  touch  of  fetishism,  which,  so  far  as  it  worked 
effectively,  tended  to  lessen  rather  than  widen  the  dis- 
tance between  the  state  of  the  Christian  world  and  the 

^  Confessions^  iii.  5.     His  reference,  however,  appears  to  be  confined  to 
the  New  Testament. 


BIBLE    CULT   AND   THE   DARK   AGES  2 


75 


lowest  known  condition  of  human  beings.  But  this 
deleterious  influence  was  limited  by  certain  compensatory 
tendencies,  which  we  shall  presently  note. 

Meantime,  it  must  be  conceded  that  this  superstitious 
and  exclusive  cult  of  the  Bible  did  not  a  little  to  prepare 
the  advent  of  the  "  dark  ages."  Not  that  this  was  the 
only  cause  of  that  eclipse.  For,  as  we  have  allowed  that 
Christianity  was  only  one  factor  among  many  in  the 
social  evolution  which  very  slowly  differentiated  post- 
Christian  from  pre-Christian  times,  so  we  must  equally 
allow  that  the  exclusive  cult  of  the  Bible  by  the  Church 
was  only  one  among  many  causes  which  brought  about  the 
decay  of  literature.  Still,  it  was  probably  one  of  the  most 
effective  amongst  those  causes.  For  when  the  best 
minds  were  wholly  occupied  in  the  elaboration  of 
metaphysical  or  theological  theories,  based,  not  on  any 
realities,  but  only  on  obscure  texts  of  doubtful  authorship, 
the  sunny  fields  of  natural  imagination  and  unshackled 
thought  were  inevitably  deserted.  It  is  true,  indeed, 
that  Augustine's  Confessions  have  a  kind  of  thrilling 
interest,  though  that  is  mostly  of  a  morbid  nature  ;  and 
that  his  City  of  God  is  a  noble  work,  though  marred  by 
forced,  unnatural,  and  false  explanations  of  the  fact  that 
the  favourites  of  God  suffered  equally  with  the  favourites 
of  the  Devil  from  the  woes  of  the  time.  It  is  true,  like- 
wise, that  the  golden-mouthed  preacher  of  Constantinople 
left  models  of  pulpit  eloquence  which,  for  simple  direct- 
ness of  utterance,  variety  of  illustration,  power  of  appeal, 
and  attractive  charm  have  perhaps  never  been  surpassed. 

But  these  men  were  exceptional.  The  "Apostolic 
Fathers  " — if  we  except  the  singular  Epistle  to  Diognetus 
— are  now  so  musty  that  no  one  would  endure  their 
dulness  were  it  not  for  their  suggestiveness  as  to  early 


276  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

Christian  modes  of  thought.  The  interest  of  Justin 
Martyr's  celebrated  dialogue  with  Trypho  lies  mainly  in 
a  comparison  of  his  quotations  from  the  "  Memoranda  of 
the  Apostles"  with  the  texts  of  our  Gospels.  Irenseus, 
in  quoting  with  apparent  confidence  the  sayings  of  the 
elders,  descends  to  depths  of  absurdity  where  all  faith 
in  his  judgment  is  lost  ;  and  we  cease  to  wonder  that 
such  a  man  should  confuse  his  old  teacher,  Polycarp's, 
reminiscences  of  some  John  of  Ephesus  with  supposed 
recollections  of  John  the  son  of  Zebedee.  Origen  was  in 
some  respects  of  a  wider  though  not  of  a  deeper  mind 
than  Augustine  ;  but  it  would  surely  be  absurd  to  com- 
pare the  human  interest  of  his  works  with  that  of  the 
great  classics,  or  even  of  later  pagan  writers,  such  as 
Lucian. 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  both  the  greater  and  lesser 
heathen  authors  lightly  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course — 
though  in  what  sense  we  are  never  quite  sure — the  pre- 
valent mythology  of  their  compatriots.  But  they  were 
not  obsessed  by  it  as  the  Christian  writers  were  by  the 
theological  traditions  of  their  Church.  In  fact,  they  did 
not  take  it  seriously  ;  and  whenever  they  touched  upon 
the  deeper  problems  of  life  they  had  recourse  to  some  as 
yet  ill-defined  elements  of  a  religion  of  the  universe, 
which  elements  might  indeed  be  described  as  latent  in 
the  mythology,  but  by  which,  just  as  far  as  they  were 
evolved  and  applied,  the  mythology  must  needs  be  super- 
seded and  effaced.^  Very  different  was  the  position  of 
Christian  writers.  For  they  did  not  hold  their  mythology 
lightly  ;  or  rather,  they  did  not  consider  it  as  mythology 

^  For  illustrations  take  the  Ai^atnem7ion  of  y^schylus  and  the  Antigone 
of  Sophocles,  especially  in  the  latter  the  speech  of  Antigone  defying  the 
threats  of  Kreon. 


BIBLE   AND   PHYSICAL   SCIENCE       277 

at  all.  And  though  they  too  had  glimpses  of  a  religion 
of  the  universe,  the  notion  that  it  could  supersede 
their  mythology  was  "anathema."  They  hastened  to 
cramp  and  confine  it  within  the  verbal  symbols  of  their 
sacred  text.  But  such  an  arbitrary  process  evaporated 
human  interest  from  most  of  their  works.  The  de- 
pressing effect  on  literature  of  such  examples,  backed 
by  the  authority  of  the  Church,  must  surely  have  been 
immense. 

If  we  turn  to  physical  science,  the  influence  of  biblio- 
latry  in  discouraging  its  progress  can  scarcely  be  denied, 
but  the  mode  and  extent  of  that  influence  may  easily  be 
misstated.  It  is  a  historical  fact  that  from  the  unauthorised 
and  regretted  murder  of  Archimedes  by  Roman  soldiery 
during  the  sack  of  Syracuse  in  the  second  century  B.C., 
to  Roger  Bacon's  pathetic  career  in  the  thirteenth  century 
of  our  era,  science  appeared  to  be  entirely  paralysed,  and 
only  survived  in  the  half-animated  forms  of  astrology 
and  alchemy.  But  the  above  dates  are  quite  sufficient 
to  bar  an  exclusive  assignment  of  the  blame  for  this  stag- 
nation to  any  influence,  direct  or  indirect,  of  the  Bible. 
For  many  adverse  causes  were  at  work,  amongst  which 
the  curious  agnosticism  to  which  Socrates  surrendered 
himself  in  early  life,  when  he  became  convinced  of  the 
unknowableness  of  physical  causes  and  processes,  may 
perhaps  be  taken  as  illustrative  and  even  typical.  The 
narrow  limitation  of  the  senses,  and  the  lack  of  instru- 
ments to  extend  their  range,  offered  insuperable  impedi- 
ments to  the  extension  of  physical  knowledge.  Even  the 
enormous  industry  and  research  of  Aristotle  could  not 
overcome  this  difficulty,  and  though  he  wrote  a  great 
deal  about  physical  science,  it  was  not  this  part  of  his 
writings   which   laid   hold   on  the    minds    of    men.      If 


278  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

ecclesiastical  scholars  for  a  thousand  years  prized  his 
philosophy  above  Plato's,  this  was  not  so  much  on 
account  of  his  discourses  about  Nature,  but  because  of 
his  metaphysics,  which  more  easily  lent  themselves  to 
the  illustration  of  prosaic  creeds  than  did  the  speculations 
of  Plato. 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  Epicurus  revived  the  atomic 
speculations  of  Democritus,  and  that  Lucretius  improved 
upon  Epicurus,  and  especially  improved  upon  him  in 
paradoxical  fashion  by  unconsciously  making  his  master's 
philosophy  moral,  spiritual,  and  inspiring  rather  than 
materialistic.^  But  such  rational  interest  in  the  mystery 
of  matter  was  exceptional,  and  during  the  arrest  of 
legitimate  physical  research  curiosity  about  Nature  was 
almost  confined  to  the  forms  of  magic,  witchcraft, 
astrology,  and  alchemy.  Of  these  the  two  former  were, 
of  course,  merely  barbarous,  or  rather  savage  ;  and  we 
may  sympathise  with  their  moral  condemnation  both  by 
wise  pagan  rulers  and  also  by  the  Church,  though  the 
cruelty  with  which  the  latter  encouraged  Christian 
magistrates  to  repress  them  was  a  deep  disgrace.  Astro- 
logy and  alchemy  were  treated  with  greater  forbearance, 
not  because  the  Church  saw  in  them  a  preparation  for 
true  science,  but,  so  long  as  the  stars  were  not  worshipped, 
it  seemed  not  irreverent  to  read  in  their  movements  the 
will  of  their  creator  ;  while,  as  to  alchemy,  if  it  refrained 
from  magic,  it  was  at  least  harmless,  and  might  bring  gain. 

1  I  am  well  aware  that  Epicurus  taught  a  pure  morality  and  indeed 
practised  it ;  but  Lucretius  breathed  into  it  a  sacred  fire,  which  is  first 
perceived  in  his  fervid  invocation  of  Venus,  considered  by  some  of  his 
admirers — but  not  by  me — to  be  inconsistent  with  his  IVeltanschauung. 
See  the  openings  of  the  second  and  third  books.  The  scBva  indignatio 
which  pervades  the  Iphigeneia  passage  is  also  an  illustration  of  what  I 
mean. 


MISCHIEFS  OF  SUPERNATURAL  BELIEFS  279 

But  the  fatal  check  imposed — not  by  the  Bible,  but  by 
its  misuse — on  the  progress  of  science  was  the  doctrine 
of  salvation  by  belief.  True,  the  Pauline  teaching 
apparently  was  that  this  saving  belief  included  only  a 
firm  persuasion  that  God  had  raised  Jesus  from  the  dead. 
And  this  teaching  was,  as  we  have  seen,  consistent  with 
much  liberality  of  thought  on  the  higher  moral  and 
social  interests  of  man,  and  with  a  frank  determination 
to  seek  "  whatsoever  things  are  true.*'  But  in  the  two 
centuries  following  the  death  of  the  apostle,  this  belief 
came  to  be  articulated  with  a  rigid  system  of  theology  so 
compacted  that,  if  the  smallest  fraction  were  denied,  the 
rest  perished  like  what  are  called  Rupert's  drops  when  a 
single  point  has  been  removed.  In  this  system  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  was  glorious  not  merely  as  mani- 
festing "the  power  of  an  endless  hfe,"  not  merely  as  a 
miracle  —  for  miracles  were  more  common  than  star 
showers  in  those  days,  and  excited  less  awe — but  because 
it  was  the  consummation  of  a  divinely  ordained  course  of 
events  beginning  with  the  expulsion  of  fallen  man  from 
Eden,  and  continued  by  judgments,  signs,  wonders,  and 
"types"  through  the  patriarchial  and  Israehtish  history, 
the  Mosaic  law  and  temple  ritual  up  to  the  supreme 
events  of  Golgotha  and  Olivet.  Now,  when  this  system, 
often  in  modern  days  called  "  the  plan  of  salvation,"  had 
been  elaborated,  it  was  no  longer  enough  to  believe  that 
God  had  raised  Jesus  from  the  dead.  No  ;  whosoever 
would  be  saved  must  also  believe  that  every  syllable  of 
the  miscellaneous  literature  compacted  into  this  false 
view  of  the  world's  history  was  the  very  word  of  God. 
It  is  no  doubt  possible  to  quote  doubtful  or  timid  utter- 
ances of  liberal-minded  churchmen  of  old  which  might 
seem    to    permit    more   freedom    of   thought.     But    the 


2  8o  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

average,  the  regulative,  the  controlling  mind  of  the 
Church  was  as  stated,  and  this  was  an  absolutely  fatal  bar 
to  any  progress  in  science. 

Thus,  although  the  stagnation  of  inquiry  had  set  in 
before  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Scriptures  attained  any 
great  influence  over  the  secular  world,  it  is  impossible  to 
deny  that  bibliolatry,  as  it  gathered  force,  extended  that 
stagnation  and  prolonged  it.  Indeed,  during  many  ages 
there  was  hardly  an  effort  to  break  the  bonds  thus  imposed 
on  freedom  of  thought.  For  the  mutually  contradictory 
accounts  given  in  Gen.  i.  and  ii.  were  regarded  as 
God's  own  statement  about  the  origin  of  earth,  animals, 
and  men,  while  the  poetic  language  of  sacred  lyrics,  and 
the  audacious  command  of  Joshua  to  the  sun  to  stand 
still,  made  it  an  article  of  faith  that  the  earth  was  the 
centre  of  the  little  universe  made  in  six  days,  and 
that  around  the  earth  all  planets  and  stars  moved  along 
lines  ruled  on  cyclic  and  epicyclic  spheres.  Under 
such  a  cramping  system  of  religious  faith,  when  once 
the  Church  had  gained  direction  of  the  secular  arm, 
the  fate  of  any  impious  wretch  who  pretended  that 
the  earth  moved,  while  God  had  delared  that  it  stood 
still,  was  assured  as  soon  as  the  accusation  was  made. 
Copernicus,  as  we  have  seen,  was  only  saved  by  his 
peaceful  death  immediately  after  the  publication  of 
his  book. 

Nor  were  the  mischievous  effects  of  this  unworthy  and 
irreverent  superstition  wholly  cancelled  by  the  Toleration 
Act  or  by  the  succeeding  struggle  for  sectarian  equality. 
For  all  sects  alike,  so  far  as  they  had  the  power,  refused 
equality  to  those  who  repudiated  the  Bible  cult.  And 
many  survivors  from  the  former  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  still  recall  with  shame  the  humiliating  apologies 


BIBLE   AND    COMMON   LAW  281 

then  made  for  geology  in  the  endeavour  to  reconcile  its 
revelations  with  Hebrew  folklore.  The  most  oppro- 
brious of  epithets  —  "  infidel "  —  that  is,  unfaithful, 
traitorous — was  applied  to  those  who  could  not  force 
their  consciences  into  a  pretence  of  belief  in  what  to  them 
was  incredible.  Honesty  in  such  matters  was  regarded 
as  wickedness.  Doubt  of  stories  compiled,  no  one  knows 
exactly  when,  or  by  whom,  was  treated  as  a  dishonour 
done  to  God.  And  the  laws  of  the  land,  with  the 
approval  of  the  so-called  "free  churches,"  1  punished  as 
blasphemy  any  outspoken  denial  of  the  historicity  and 
accuracy  of  the  Bible.  Those  laws  still,  to  our  shame, 
remain  on  the  Statute  Book  ;  and  belief  in  the  super- 
natural character  of  the  Bible  in  some  form  or  other — 
perhaps  the  beHef  of  Henry  VIIL  in  his  later  days — has 
often  been  pronounced  by  our  judges  to  be  protected  by 
our  common  law.  But  recent  trials  have  shown  public 
opinion  to  be  increasingly  impatient  of  prosecutions  for 
blasphemy  when  the  offence  is  at  worst  a  breach  of  good 
taste  or  an  ill-mannered  disregard  of  public  feeling. 
Perhaps,  however,  the  most  conspicuous  and  mischievous 
survival  at  the  present  day  of  the  old  superstition  of 
salvation  by  belief  is  seen  in  the  interminable  and  dis- 
graceful wrangle  over  public  elementary  education. 
Nothing  can  explain  this  but  wilful  blindness  to  the  fact 
that  the  days  of  "  simple  Bible  "  are  gone  for  ever,  and 
that  the  only  way  of  peace  is  to  teach  morality  in  the 
people's  school,  while  leaving  salvation  by  belief  to  the 
Church.  It  must  be  confessed,  then,  that  as  regards  the 
liberation  of  inquiry,  the  progress  of  science  and  the 
popular  education  necessary  to  the  frank  acceptance  of 

1  They  are  becoming  more   really  free   now,  thanks,   mainly,  to   the 
"  New  Theology"  movement. 


282  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

newly  discovered  fact,  the  influence  of  the  Bible  has  not 
been  favourable,  but  the  reverse. 

On  the  other  hand,  that  minority  of  the  human  race 
which  has  come  under  the  influence  of  the  Bible  forms 
no  exception  to  the  rule  that  "  peoples  of  the  Book  " — 
that  is,  races  with  a  literature  consecrated  as  divine — have 
always  been  stimulated  to  such  studies  as  would  throw 
light  on  the  doctrines  and  significance  and  authority  of 
the  Book.     The  fanatical  devotion  of  the  later  Hebrews 
to  their  sacred  volume  is  well  known.     They  counted  its 
words,  its  very  letters,  and  pointed  out  the  word  that  had 
the    honour    of    occupying    precisely    the    centre    of  the 
collected    books.       Having    originally    a    rude    alphabet 
consisting    of  consonants    only,  with    which    the    proper 
vowels  were  traditionally  associated  by  use  and  wont,  the 
Jews,  after  the  destruction  of  their  temple  and  city,  found 
it   necessary   to   elaborate   a   system    of    vowel  points  to 
preserve  what  they  regarded  as  the  true  pronunciation  ; 
and    nothing  but  devotional    zeal    can    account    for    the 
minuteness  with  which  they  invented  visual  representa- 
tions of    every    slightest    shade   of  diflFerence    in  sound. 
Nor  were  they  content  with  this  ;  but  added  a  complex 
system  of  accents,  indicating  to  the  reader  every  rise  and 
fall  of  tone,  every  pause,  and,  so  far  as  possible,  every 
modulation  of  the  voice.     The  later  Greeks  had  indeed 
their  accents,  about  the  practical  significance  of  which  in 
reading  there  is  even  yet  much  dispute  among  scholars. 
But  it  is  at  any  rate  certain  that  the  New  Testament,  even 
after    the    establishment    of    Christianity    by    law,   never 
received  the  same  kind  of  devotion  to  its  syllables  and 
letters  as  did  the  Old  Testament  among  the  Jews  of  the 
Dispersion.     For  if  it  had,  we  might  have  known  more 
than    we    do   now  about    the  relation    of   Hellenistic  to 


THE   BENEDICTINES  283 

modern  Greek.^  Still,  among  Christians,  as  well  as 
amongst  Vedantists,  Zoroastrians,  Buddhists,  and  Mahom- 
medans,  the  possession  of  a  sacred  book  inevitably 
engendered  a  certain  literary  ardour  which  showed  itself 
in  various  forms. 

Both  Gibbon  and  Milman,^  from  very  different  stand- 
points, have  traced  the  inevitable  evolution  of  monasteries 
into  schools  of  copyists,  theologians,  critics,  metaphysicians, 
and  philosophers.  Of  this  I  need  say  nothing  except 
that  the  labours  of  the  Benedictines,  who  were  devoted 
to  biblical  and  patristic  lore  long  before  the  issue  of  their 
well-known  massive  folios,  certainly  kept  alive  scholarship 
in  the  dark  ages.  Perhaps  the  survival  of  Latin  as  the 
ecclesiastical  language,  and  also  the  cultivation  of  New 
Testament  and  patristic  Greek,  had  some  share  in  pre- 
serving the  aptitude  which  found  its  opportunity  after  the 
fall  of  Constantinople,  and  the  precarious  dispersion  of 
Greek  literature  through  the  Western  world.  All  this 
must  be  set  to  the  credit  of  the  Bible  and  of  the  veneration 
it  excited  in  the  minds  of  the  more  cultured  men  of  those 
days.  But  then  came  the  inevitable  difficulty  created  by 
the  superstition  of  salvation  by  belief.  For  the  Renaissance 
demanded  scope  for  freedom  of  thought ;  and  Bible 
fetishism  refused  it.  Hence  the  martyrology  of  science. 
Thus  the  Bible  did  help  culture  by  necessitating  the  study 
of  letters  even  in  the  darkest  age.  But  only  prejudice 
can  deny  that  the  misinterpretation  of  its  claims  had  done 
much  to  deepen  the  darkness.     And  there  is  much  reason 

^  Of  course  Greek  is  redundant  in  vowels.  But  if  there  had  been  the 
same  awe  for  the  very  sounds  which  the  Jews  cherished  in  reading  their 
sacred  volume,  one  fancies  that  Christians  might  have  taken  more  pains 
to  preserve  the  pronunciation. 

2  See  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall^  chap,  xxxiv.,  and  Milman's  Latin 
Christianity^  Book  viii.,  chap.  v. 


284  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

to  think  that  the  traditions  of  Greece  and  Rome,  which 
influenced  even  the  barbarian  conquerors,  would  more 
quickly  have  emancipated  thought  had  they  not  been 
hampered  and  checked  by  that  strange  perversion  of  the 
real  nature  of  the  Judaeo-Christian  book. 

Although,  for  reasons  above  given,  I  have  not  thought 
it  necessary  to  treat  at  any  length  of  the  eflFect  of  the 
Bible  upon  law,  yet  a  word  or  two  must  be  said  in 
passing  from  culture  to  freedom  as  factors  in  social 
evolution,  because,  as  already  said,  law  is  the  offspring 
of  both.^  It  is  not  essential  to  be  learned  in  the  law  of 
order  to  judge  of  its  general  relation  to  the  evolution  in 
morals.  And  in  the  direct  or  indirect  influence  of  a  mis- 
understood Bible  on  Christian  law,  certain  facts  stand  out 
too  plainly  to  be  denied.  Nothing  that  will  here  be  said 
is  in  the  slightest  degree  inconsistent  with  observations 
already  made  on  brotherly  love  as  in  a  special  sense  the 
social  bond  of  the  earliest  Christian  Church  ;  and,  in  one 
form  or  another,  this  brotherly  love  or  "  charity "  in  St 
Paul's  sense  has  from  time  to  time  inspired  obscure 
societies  of  monks,  nuns,  "  Friends  of  God,"  mystics, 
and  various  sectaries  who  have  tried  to  return  to  the 
teaching  of  Christ.  Hence,  judging  the  past  by  their  own 
consciousness,  it  was  not  unnatural  that  members  of  these 
brotherhoods,  many  of  them  knowing  little  or  nothing  of 
Church  history,  should  assume  that,  excepting  the  mis- 
deeds of  a  few  misguided  Christian  emperors,  popes,  and 
prelates,  the  story  of  Christianity  had  been  that  of  a  moral 
revolution,  in  which  "judgment,  mercy,  and  faith,"  by 
displacing  the  barbarities  of  heathen  superstition,  had 
assumed  the  prime  and  sovereign  place  which  Jesus 
assigned  them.  But  the  reality  as  presented  to  us  by  all 
^  Cj.  p.  268,  ante. 


IDEAL   AND   HISTORIC   CHRISTIANITY  285 

our  great  and  most  trustworthy  historians  affords  a  sad 
contrast. 

In  the  first  place,  the  law  of  Moses  was  adopted  as 
enacted  by  the  eternal,  and  the  distinction  between  its 
temporary  authority,  as  in  matters  of  ritual,  and  its 
permanent  force  as  a  moral  code,  was  never  consistently 
made  or  firmly  held.  For  instance,  the  cruel  words, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live,"  had  far  more 
power  over  the  public  conscience  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
even  later,  than  the  words  of  Jesus  said  to  have  been 
addressed  to  a  woman  surprised  in  a  worse  offence  : 
"  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee  ;  go,  and  sin  no  more." 
The  savage  laws  against  heresy  in  the  comparatively  late 
Book  of  Deuteronomy  (chap,  xiii.),^  furnished  fearful 
precedents  to  the  persecuting  spirit  of  the  orthodox  so 
soon  as  the  Church  was  able  to  direct  leglislation  about 
religion.  But  this  has  been  inevitably,  though  incidentally, 
illustrated  in  the  preceding  pages,  and  need  not  be  further 
laboured  here. 

Of  more  importance  perhaps  is  it  to  note  that,  according 
to  the  best  authorities,^  so  far  from  softening  the  rigours 

1  In  these  days  it  is  impossible  to  take  for  granted  familiarity  with  the 
Bible  even  on  the  part  of  those  who  most  passionately  advocate  it  as  a 
school  book.  So,  in  case  readers  have  not  a  Bible  at  hand,  I  will  quote 
the  passage  referring  to  any  city  convicted  of  heresy  {alias  idolatry)  :  "  Thou 
shalt  surely  smite  the  inhabitants  of  that  city  with  the  edge  of  the  sword, 
destroying  it  utterly,  and  all  that  is  therein,  and  the  cattle  thereof,  with 
the  edge  of  the  sword."  We  may  be  sure  that  if  the  cattle  were  not 
to  be  spared,  neither  were  the  women  and  children.  It  is,  of  course,  to 
be  remembered  that  the  legislation  of  Deuteronomy  was  fictitious,  in  the 
sense  that  it  was  represented  as  given  some  eight  hundred  years  before 
it  was  written.  But  though  by  the  decaying  kingdom  of  Judaea  it  was 
never  carried  out,  that  did  not  lessen  its  evil  influence  on  Christians,  who 
took  it  as  the  very  law  of  God. 

2  See  Milman's  Latin  Christianity^  Maine,  Lecky.  Nor  do  I  think 
Gibbon  ought  to  be  excluded  on  account  of  slight  occasional  lapses  into 
partiality.     In  general  he  is  most  judicial. 


286  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

of  Roman  law,  Christian  legislation,  based  rather  on 
Moses  than  on  the  Gospel,  enfeebled  it  in  some  respects 
and  barbarised  it  in  others.  If  Constantine  abolished  cruci- 
fixion, it  was  from  no  humane  tenderness,  for  he  favoured 
rather  burning  alive.  The  Roman  rigour  which  buried 
alive  unchaste  vestal  virgins  was  hateful  enough  ;  but 
the  Christian  law  which  substituted  the  stake  and  fire  for 
many  forms  of  unchastity  can  hardly  be  considered  an 
advance.  Jews  had  to  suffer  for  ages  an  exaggerated 
form  of  the  injustice  attributed  by  them  to  their  own 
God,  who  was  said  in  various  passages  of  their  law  to  visit 
the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third 
and  fourth  generation.  But  in  Christian  morals,  as  inter- 
preted by  popes  and  mobs,  the  twentieth  generation  was 
not  immune  from  the  Furies  who  avenged  the  murder  of 
Christ.  The  treatment  of  witches,  Jews,  and  heretics, 
according  to  the  supposed  teachings  of  the  Bible,  is  a 
sufficient  illustration  of  the  degradation  of  the  Scriptures 
by  the  prime  falsehood  of  salvation  by  belief. 

When  we  turn  to  the  influence  of  the  Bible  on  freedom 
as  a  growing  factor  in  social  evolution,  we  are  met  by  the 
difficulty  that  the  races  who  earliest  developed  constitu- 
tional government  had  their  political  instincts  quite  inde- 
pendently of  the  Bible,  though  when  they  became  familiar 
with  it  they  could  quote  it  effectively  for  their  purpose  ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  races  who  longest  maintained 
despotism  were  those  to  whom  the  Bible  had  first  been 
given.  Moreover,  the  partial  quotations  of  rebels  about 
the  dignity  of  human  nature,  and  the  duty  of  choosing 
freedom  when  possible,  were  easily  parried  by  multifarious 
texts  about  the  sacredness  of  "  the  Lord's  anointed  "  and 
the  divine  ordination  of  "  the  powers  that  be."  If  we 
take  the  only  case  in  all  history  in  which  the  Bible  has 


BIBLE  AND  ENGLISH  COMMONWEALTH  287 

been  an  eiFective,  and,  for  a  few  brief  years,  a  resistless 
weapon  in  the  hands  of  rebellion  against  unreason  in  high 
places — I  mean,  of  course,  the  too  brief  triumph  of  the 
British  Commonwealth  under  Oliver  Cromwell — we  find 
that  it  was  not  any  biblical  doctrine  about  the  rights  of 
man,  but  about  belief  and  worship  that  fired  the  souls 
and  strengthened  the  arms  of  the  victors.  For  though 
ship-money  and  other  illegal  exactions  supplied  the  fuel, 
zeal  against  "  Popery  "  struck  the  spark  that  kindled  the 
flame  of  revolt.  The  first  Parliament  in  which  Cromwell 
sat  was  largely  occupied  with  religious  questions,  and  his 
heat  in  speaking  of  these  amazed  some  of  his  colleagues. 

Now,  when  we  speak  of  "  religious  questions  "  in  the 
early  Parliaments  of  Charles  I.,  we  must  remember  that 
for  the  rising  party  they  were  Bible  questions.  Lollardism 
had  never  completely  died  out,  though  it  was  held  in 
abeyance  under  the  brutal  rule  of  the  Tudors.  But  there 
were  signs  of  its  revival  under  Elizabeth  ;  and  under 
James  it  rapidly  assumed  the  new  form  called  "  Puri- 
tanism." In  fact,  the  rate  of  its  revival  was  fairly  pro- 
portionate to  the  spread  of  Bible-reading  in  Wycliff^e's 
version,  and  its  successors.  And  the  "  most  dread 
sovereign "  who  has  the  credit  of  giving  us  the 
Authorised  Version,  would  have  been  better  advised, 
so  far  as  dynastic  interests  were  concerned,  if  he  had 
persisted  in  his  first  indifference  and  refused  to  counte- 
nance the  new  version  at  all.  For  though,  as  I  have  said, 
the  Bible  with  its  many  facets  could  be  appealed  to  in 
support  of  almost  any  theory  of  government,  yet  when 
once  a  solid  phalanx  of  stern  believers  in  "  the  plan  of 
salvation  "  was  established  in  the  heart  of  the  kingdom, 
that  Bible  interpretation  became  supreme  which  saw 
nothing  in  the  Book  but  the  eternal  worth  of  the  indi- 


288  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

vidual  soul,  and  the  scheme  devised  by  the  Almighty  for 
its  redemption.  All  other  aspects  of  the  Scriptures  were 
overlooked  or  were  forced  into  harmony  with  this.  And 
salvation  being  of  such  tremendous  import,  any  State 
institutions  or  ecclesiastical  traditions  and  customs  that 
were  thought  to  obscure  this  pure  gospel  became  intoler- 
able and  must  be  discarded  at  any  cost. 

Now,  when  those  actuated  by  this  zeal  for  the  Bible 
found  that  not  only  the  solid  phalanx  of  Puritans,  but 
the  whole  people  were  outraged  by  financial  grievances, 
and  by  extensions  of  the  royal  prerogative,  as  illegal  as 
they  were  intolerable,  it  was  natural  enough  that  religious 
and  secular  motives  should  be  fused.  Whether  in  a 
matter  purely  religious  the  devouter  English  Puritans 
would,  like  the  Scotch  Covenanters,  have  resisted  unto 
blood  with  weapons  in  their  hands,  is  perhaps  uncertain. 
But  when  the  overthrow  of  ancient  laws  and  royal  con- 
tempt for  Parliament  made  civil  war  inevitable,  the  scenes 
of  carnage  ensuing  did  not  in  the  least  lessen  the  confidence 
of  the  CromwelHans  that  they  were  fighting  the  battles 
of  the  Lord.  Apart  from  this  source  of  burning  zeal, 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  king,  his  courtiers,  and 
their  dependents — trained  in  habits  of  superstitious  loyalty 
— could  have  been  overcome.  But  when  Oliver  went 
down  from  the  ineffectual  fight  at  Edgehill,  and  began  to 
drill  Bible  readers  and  expounders  as  the  nucleus  of  the 
future  new  model  army,  victory  was  made  certain. 
Thus  in  the  solitary  instance,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  in 
which  the  Bible  was  an  effective  auxiliary  to  people 
"  rightly  struggling  to  be  free,"  it  was  so  incidentally — 
one  might  almost  say  accidentally — for  ship-money,  forced 
loans,  and  the  royal  power  to  dispense  with  the  law  upon 
occasion,  were  not  opposed  to  revelation.     But  the  worth 


THE   KIRK   OF   SCOTLAND  289 

of  the  soul  and  the  right  of  access  to  God  without  the 
intervention  of  sacrament  or  priest  were  open  to  biblical 
proof,  and  the  possession  of  the  Puritan  conscience  by- 
burning  convictions  on  these  matters  incited  a  sacred 
furor^  which  otherwise  might  have  been  lacking  to  their 
political  creed. 

It  may  be  plausibly  said  that  I  am  wrong  in  calling  the 
rise  of  the  English  Commonwealth  the  solitary  instance 
in  which  the  Bible  was  an  effective  auxiliary  to  rebellion 
against  despotism.  For,  as  above  admitted,  the  Scotch 
Covenanters  seem  to  afford  another  case,  and  their 
resistance  was  more  purely  religious.  But  the  ultimate 
success  of  the  Scotch  Presbyterians  was  entirely  an  after- 
effect of  the  temporary  success  of  the  English  Common- 
wealth. For  William  III.  was  shrewd  enough  to  discern 
that  the  biblical  zeal  which  executed  Charles  I.  and  drove 
away  James  II.  derived  in  Scotland  an  additional  intensity 
from  a  unity  of  creed  unknown  in  England,  and  from  a 
democratic  Church  organisation  which  had  all  the  strength 
of  a  multitude  with  one  mind.  But,  after  all,  the 
establishment  of  the  Scottish  Kirk  was  really  a  conse- 
quence of  Cromwellian  victories,  and  is  hardly  conceivable 
without  them.  It  was  part,  therefore,  of  the  general 
movement  in  Britain,  to  which,  as  I  have  said,  the  Bible 
was  incidentally  an  effective  help. 

In  other  lands  it  seems  vain  to  seek  for  such  a  case. 
The  superstitious  use  of  the  Bible  by  the  insurgent 
German  peasants  in  Luther's  time  has  already  been 
described,  and  clearly  offers  no  parallel.  It  might  be 
supposed  that  the  rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic  owed  much 
to  biblical  inspiration.  But  the  long  agony  of  that 
struggle,  lasting  for  nigh  a  hundred  years,  began  at  a 
time  when  in  the  Low  Countries  the  common  people's 

19 


90 


MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 


knowledge  of  the  Bible  must  have  been  limited  to  the 
extracts  given  in  Church  services.  And  though  Protest- 
ant opinions  made  rapid  progress  amongst  them,  the 
probability  is  that  this  progress  owed  more  to  inter-racial 
hatred,  impatience  of  Spanish  tyranny  over  a  Low  German 
race,  and  interference  with  the  country's-  commercial 
prosperity,  than  to  any  general  study  of  the  Bible.  At 
any  rate,  there  was  never  in  the  Low  Countries  anything 
like  the  spectacle  of  Cromwell's  soldiers,  every  one  of 
whom  was  as  ready  with  his  Bible  as  his  sword.  In  the 
case  of  the  French  Huguenots  the  Bible,  though  certainly 
not  as  well  known  as  among  the  English  Puritans, 
undoubtedly  had  an  influence.  But  it  was  not  effective 
because  it  did  not  enable  the  sectaries  to  lay  hold  on 
national  opinion  and  turn  it  into  another  course.  What 
the  Bible  did  for  England,  the  eighteenth-century 
philosophers  and  encyclopaedists  had  to  do  for  France  ; 
and  they  did  not  do  it  so  well. 

Nevertheless,  there  was  one  kind  of  freedom  which  was 
much  more  completely  secured  by  the  French  Revolution 
than  by  the  brief  triumph  of  the  English  Commonwealth  ; 
I  mean  freedom  of  thought.  Unfortunately,  custom, 
aided  by  ecclesiastical  bigotry,  has  contracted  the  phrase 
"  free  thought "  into  a  single  word  to  which  a  sinister 
meaning  has  been  attached.  For  in  this  narrow  and 
sectarian  sense  "  freethought "  means  thought  only  in  one 
direction,  and  no  one  is  a  "  freethinker "  who,  at  least 
in  the  realm  of  religion,  fails  to  take  as  his  model 
Goethe's  Mephistopheles,  the  "  Spirit  who  always  denies." 
According  to  this  nothing  can  be  true  about  religion  but 
negation,  and  any  great  thinkers  like  Kant,  Schleiermacher, 
Hegel,  who  have  dared  to  make  positive  assertions,  were 
not  free  in  thought.     To  such   a   conception  of   "  free- 


SO-CALLED   «  FREETHOUGHT  "         291 

thought "  even  Spinoza  was  not  a  "  freethinker "  ;  for 
he  was  one  of  the  most  religious  of  men,  and  he  cherished 
a  faith  in  God  so  firm  that  no  curses  of  the  synagogue 
nor  hostility  or  temptations  of  the  world  could  shake  it. 
Or,  to  refer  to  lesser  names,  according  to  this  sectarian  in- 
terpretation, neither  Roger  Bacon  nor  Thomas  Campanella, 
the  latter  of  whom  endured  days  of  frightful  torture  rather 
than  yield  his  mental  liberty,  were  "  freethinkers,"  because 
they  had  a  positive  religious  faith.  Nay,  in  that  very 
race  which  most  completely  shattered  ecclesiastical  or 
biblical  fetters  on  thought,  some  of  its  noblest  sons  would 
be  denied  the  title  of  "  freethinkers  "  in  the  cant  sense 
which  since  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  has 
been  given  to  the  word.  For  men  such  as  Albert  and 
Jean  Reville,  as  well  as  Alfred  Loisy,  may  be  regarded  as 
grandsons  of  the  Revolution.  They  have  all  asserted 
in  various  degrees  their  inalienable  right  to  think  for 
themselves  ;  but  because  they  have  declined  to  think  only 
in  one  direction,  they  are  supposed  not  to  think  freely. 
Now,  surely  freedom  of  thought  is  shown  not  by  the 
conclusions  reached,  but  by  the  mental  methods  used  ; 
and  a  man  who  in  the  exercise  of  his  best  judgment, 
without  hope  of  reward  or  fear  of  penalty,  leaves,  let  us 
say,  Wesleyan  Methodism  for  the  Catholic  Church,  may 
have  much  more  real  freedom  of  thought  during  his  tran- 
sition than  the  bigot  who  condemns  all  religion  as  mere 
fraud.  One  of  the  worst  results  of  this  lamentable  misuse 
of  a  noble  word  in  a  miserable  sectarian  sense  is  that  it 
inevitably,  though  most  unjustly,  has  suggested  during 
two  centuries  the  etymological  analogy  of  "  free-liver."  ^ 

1  The  first  quotation  of  this  misuse  which  the  New  English  Dictionary 
has  been  able  to  find  is  dated  conjecturally  1692.  In  1708  Dean  Swift 
wrote  of  "  atheists,  libertines,  despisers  of  religion,  that  is  to  say,  all  those 


292  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

But  be  that  as  it  may,  it  remains  true  that  the  French 
Revolution  did  much  more  effectually  and  completely 
than  the  English  achievement  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment, put  an  end  to  the  bondage  of  superstition,  whether 
imposed  by  Bible  or  Church.  Now,  this  difference 
between  the  results  of  the  two  revolutions  was  un- 
doubtedly caused  by  the  difference  of  position  held  by 
the  Bible  in  the  England  of  Cromwell  and  the  France  of 
Robespierre.  For  the  Cromwellians  staked  all  their 
political  as  well  as  their  religious  hopes  on  the  Bible  as 
the  Word  of  God.  But  the  French,  in  whose  nominal 
religion  the  Bible  held  a  secondary  place,  had  no  tempta- 
tion to  accept  an  infallible  book  instead  of  an  infaUible 
Church  ;  and  when  they  shook  off  the  yoke  of  the 
latter,  the  authority  of  the  former  evaporated  as  a  matter 
of  course.  Neither  the  Napoleonic  Concordat,  nor  the 
temporary  restoration  of  royalty,  nor  the  Second  Empire 
affects  the  main  facts,  for  what  we  see  in  France  now 
is  indisputably  the  delayed  result  of  the  great  Revolution 
in  the  triumph  of  free  thought.  With  the  question 
whether  this  is  likely  to  be  a  permanent  advantage  for 
the  French  people  or  not,  I  am  not  here  concerned,  for 
I  am  dealing  only  with  actual  facts  in  the  story  of  the 
relations  of  the  Bible  and  Man.  But  adherents  of  the 
Puritan  or  ecclesiastical  tradition,  who  are  displeased  with 
many  things  in  the  manners  of  contemporary  France, 
would  do  well  to  remember  that  the  people  amongst 
whom  equality  and  fraternity  are  more  real  than  amongst 
any  other  people  in  the  world,  are  no  less  displeased  with 

who  usually  pass  under  the  name  of  Free-thinkers."  What  the  brilliant 
Dean's  ideas  of  religion  may  have  been,  except  as  a  bulwark  of  established 
order  and  a  mode  of  securing  a  living,  it  is  not  easy  to  make  out,  but 
few  more  deadly  thrusts  have  been  aimed  at  religion  than  this  sanction 
of  the  vulgar  association  of  free  thought  about  it  with  libertinism. 


BIBLE   AND   CONSERVATISM  293 

many  things  in  the  manners  of  contemporary  Britain.^  I 
do  not  pretend  to  be  a  judge,  but  at  least  I  may  urge 
that  differences  of  race,  climate,  surroundings,  and  social 
traditions  necessarily  affect  the  degree  of  moral  import- 
ance attached  to  modes  of  amusement,  and  adminis- 
tration of  law,  and  forms  of  dissipation  in  different 
lands.^ 

If  I  should  be  asked  whether  I  regret  this  biblical 
influence  on  English  politics,  I  should  reply  that  on  the 
whole  I  do  not.  For  it  has  certainly  served  to  strengthen 
that  conservative  instinct  which,  when  not  mere  stupid 
immobility,  makes  all  the  difference  between  continuous 
progress  and  discontinuous  shocks  of  revolution.  But  I 
cannot  blind  myself  to  the  proofs  that  this  conservative 
instinct  has  been  excessive  in  the  English  race,  and  re- 
sponsible for  the  continuance  of  many  belated  abuses. 
Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  the  substitution  of  an  infallible 
book  for  an  infallible  Church  has  been  an  important, 
though  not  the  only  cause  of  the  excess  of  the  conserva- 


1  The  annoyance  of  our  French  neighbours  at  finding  the  Anglo-French 
Exhibition  closed  against  them  on  the  one  day  in  the  week  most  con- 
venient to  them,  and  professedly  closed  on  account  of  a  Mosaic  ritual 
command  which  no  Englishman  observes  literally,  and  all  interpret  as 
suits  their  convenience,  is  well  calculated  to  deepen  the  French  convic- 
tion of  English  hypocrisy. 

2  I  use  the  word  in  the  Horatian  sense  of  "dulce  est  desipere  in  loco." 
Intimate  friends  of  my  own,  brought  up  in  the  straitest  Evangelical  sect, 
and  strict  Sabbatarians  to  this  day,  when  travelling  in  France  have  un- 
scrupulously attended  on  the  Sunday  the  modified  form  of  bull-fight 
permitted  in  that  country.  Nor  is  their  case  at  all  uncommon.  English 
Pharisees  readily  become  French  Sadducees  for  the  nonce  when  it  helps 
their  holiday.  I  do  not  think  I  could  bring  myself  to  attend  a  bull-fight 
either  on  a  Sunday  or  any  other  day.  But  though  I  regret  such  customs, 
which  are  disappearing,  the  practice  of  my  Evangelical  friends  affords 
ample  proof  that  the  Bible  has  nothing  to  do  with  those  customs  one  way 
or  the  other.  The  Book  was  a  controlling  power  in  England  for  three 
hundred  years  before  bull-baiting  ceased. 


294  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

tive  instinct  among  us.  Much  must  be  allowed  for  the 
survival  of  feudal  traditions  even  among  the  classes  most 
wronged  thereby,  as,  for  instance,  tenant  farmers.  Of 
these  feudal  traditions  the  sacredness  of  land  and  property 
is,  perhaps,  only  a  special  form,  and  there  are  many  others 
as  yet  inextricably  intertwined  with  our  social  system. 
But  the  unreasonable  privileges  of  property  in  general, 
whether  real  or  personal,  are  sustained  by  other  pre- 
judices to  which  the  teaching  of  Jesus  certainly  lends  no 
countenance,  while  nevertheless  they  may  be  amply  sus- 
tained on  scriptural  grounds  if  the  whole  Bible  be  the 
Word  of  God. 

Encomiasts  of  the  story  of  Joseph  in  Genesis  are  fully 
justified  so  long  as  they  confine  themselves  to  the  skill 
with  which  the  narrative  has  been  compiled  and  the 
literary  interest  ensuing.  But  when  they  attempt  to 
make  it  a  model  of  morals  for  children  of  the  twentieth 
century,  they  strangely  ignore  the  ungenerous,  oppressive, 
and  despotic  policy  by  which  Pharaoh's  chief  minister  is 
said  to  have  used  the  distress  of  the  people  as  a  means 
of  extorting  from  them  their  lands  and  cattle  for  the 
benefit  of  the  king,  and  of  finally  making  them  all  his 
bond  slaves.  The  non-historical  character  of  the  story 
does  not  affect  this  point,  for  the  moral  is  equally  bad 
in  a  fictitious  tale.  The  ideal  of  statecraft  would  surely 
have  been  to  enforce  such  thrift  that,  at  the  end  of  the 
seven  years'  famine,  the  freemen  of  the  nation  should  not 
only  have  possessed  their  lives,  but  their  unmortgaged 
property  together  with  seed  for  the  better  time  coming. 
This,  however,  was  not  the  ideal  of  the  compiler,  nor 
apparently  is  it  of  those  who  commend  his  narrative  as 
ideal  morality.  For  the  narrator  thought  that  the  dignity 
and  wealth  of  Pharaoh  was  far  more  important  than  the 


THE   NEIGHBOUR'S   LANDMARK       295 

freedom  of  his  subjects.  And  this  is  the  lesson  taught 
by  his  story  to  twentieth-century  children.  What  wonder 
if  past  generations,  nourished  on  such  lore,  conceived 
that  subjects  existed  for  kings,  and  not  kings  for  their 
subjects  ? 

The  sacredness  of  the  "  neighbour's  landmark  "  ^  was, 
no  doubt,  in  early  Israelitish  times  a  protection  to  the 
poor.  But  in  latter  days  it  has  been  used  with  much 
sanctimony  as  a  defence  of  the  rich.  For  tribes  amongst 
whom  all  land  was  communal  except  the  sites  of  dwellings, 
it  was  not  needed.  Wherever  private  ownership  was 
introduced  it  was  much  to  the  interest  of  the  weak  that 
boundary  stones  should  have  a  special  sanctity.  But 
when,  under  modern  systems,  the  land  became  practically 
monopolised  by  a  minority,  the  appeal  to  biblical  authority 
on  the  sacredness  of  boundaries  has  often  succeeded  in 
giving  an  utterly  disproportionate  and  even  fictitious 
importance  to  the  rights  of  the  owner  of  land.  As  to 
personal  privilege,  the  Church  Catechism  has  often  been 
unjustly  charged  with  discountenancing  reasonable 
ambition  to  make  the  most  of  our  opportunities.  But, 
as  previously  noted,  the  catechumen  is  instructed  to  do 
his  duty  not  "  in  that  state  of  life  unto  which  it  kath 
pleased  God  to  call  him,"  but  "  in  that  state  of  life  unto 
unto  which  it  shall  please  God  to  call  him " — a  very 
different  thing.  Yet,  for  all  that,  the  Anglican  Church, 
like  Oliver  Cromwell,  has  always  believed  in  the 
expediency  of  a  distinction  in  classes.  But  while  I  do 
not  remember  that  Cromwell  quoted  Scripture  in  favour 
of  his  cherished  social  ideal  of  a  "  nobleman,  a  gentleman, 
a  yeoman,"  the  Church  has  often  appealed  to  Pauline  con- 
servatism— or  should  we  say  indifference  } — in  regard  to 
^  Deut.  xix.  14,  xxvii.  17  ;  Prov.  xxii.  28,  xxiii.  10. 


296  MAN  AND   THE   BIBLE 

political  issues.  An  any  rate  the  Pauline  sanction  of  "  the 
powers  that  be,"  the  exhortation  that  every  Christian  man 
should  abide  in  the  same  calling  wherein  he  was  called," 
and  the  warning  that  "the  magistrate  beareth  not  the 
sword  in  vain  "  were  used  in  a  settled  Christian  civilisa- 
tion in  a  manner  which  would  have  very  much  astonished 
the  originators  of  these  sayings,  who  perforce  adopted 
them  as  necessitated  by  a  time  of  distress.  And  as  the 
ultimate  sanction  of  this  New  Testament  depreciation  of, 
or  indifference  to,  political  equality,  the  Church  made 
much  use  of  that  superstitious  and  sanctimonious  phrase 
"  the  Lord's  anointed,"  which,  in  the  Old  Testament,  is 
redolent  of  a  combination  between  clan  leadership  and 
fetishism. 

Well  would  it  have  been  for  the  Commonwealth 
if  these  natural  errors  had  exhausted  the  evil  influences 
of  a  misuse  of  the  Bible  on  social  evolution.  But  it 
has  not  been  so.  For  far  worse  than  any  consecration 
of  institutional  conservatism  has  been  the  cramping  of 
individual  thought  by  a  fetishistic  terror  of  thinking  or 
saying  anything  against  the  divine  authority  of  the 
Book.  Of  this  fetishistic  terror  we  have  some  thrilling 
descriptions  in  the  late  J.  A.  Froude's  Nemesis  of 
Faith^  which,  though  a  work  of  less  imagination  than 
his  chief  work  of  history,  relates  in  the  form  of  fiction 
a  story  of  spiritual  experience.  Not  that  I  for  a  moment 
doubt  his  repudiation  of  any  autobiographical  intention  ; 
but  it  was  quite  impossible  for  a  man  of  his  intense  feel- 
ing to  avoid  transferring  to  the  subject  of  his  narrative — 
I  will  not  say  his  hero^  of  the  repugnance — mingled  with 
horror  at  that  repugnance  —  which  he  himself  had  felt 
towards  the  theory  of  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God. 
Granting  this,  what  strikes  us  as  strange,  pathetic,  and, 


"THE   NEMESIS   OF   FAITH''  297 

in  these  "  New  Theology  "  days  almost  inconceivable  in 
the  case  of  a  man  of  high  culture,  is  the  abject  fear 
which  seizes  on  the  subject  of  the  story  when  he  is  face 
to  face  with  honest  doubt. 

"  When  I  go  to  church,  the  old  church  of  my  old  child 
days,  when  I  hear  the  old  familiar  bells,  with  their  warm, 
sweet  heart  music,  and  the  young  and  old  troop  by  along 
the  road  in  their  best  Sunday  dresses,  old  well-known  faces 
and  young  unknown  ones  which  by  and  by  will  grow  to  be 
so  like  them  ;  when  I  hear  the  lessons,  the  old  lessons,  being 
read  in  the  old  way,  and  all  the  old  associations  come  floating 
back  upon  me,  telling  me  what  I  too  once  was,  before  I 
ever  doubted  things  were  what  I  was  taught  they  were  ;  oh, 
they  sound  so  sad,  so  bitterly  sad  !  The  tears  rise  into  my 
eyes  ;  the  church  seems  full  of  voices,  whispering  to  me 
'Infidel,  Infidel,  Apostate '  j  all  these  believing  faces  in 
their  reverent  attention  glisten  with  reproaches,  so  calm  they 
look,  so  dignified,  so  earnestly  composed.  I  wish — I  wish 
I  had  never  been  born  !  "  1 

What  words  of  abysmal  unbelief  are  these  last — of 
cowardly  despair,  of  traitorous  rebellion  against  the  only 
God  clearly  known,  the  Universe  One  and  Eternal !  To 
say  "  I  wish  I  had  never  been  born,"  is  as  much  as  to  say 
"  I  wish  the  universe  had  been  other  than  it  is,"  because 
without  the  "  I  "  it  must  have  been  other.  And  that  is 
like  wishing  that  two  and  two  made  five,  which  many  an 
impecunious  debtor  does,  thinking  that  the  change  would 
work  only  to  his  advantage,  and  forgetting  that  his  debts 
would  be  increased  as  well.  When  will  men  learn  that 
the  perfection  of  the  universe  is  not  to  be  looked  for  in 
its  convenience  to  us,  but  in  the  exquisite  balance  and 
concinnity  of  the  infinite  Whole,  so  that  no  part  can  be 

1   The  Nemesis  of  Faith,  The  Walter  Scott  Publishing  Co.  Ltd.,  1904, 
pp.  26-27. 


298  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

annihilated  and  none  of  its  so-called  "  laws  "  abrogated, 
even  for  an  instant,  without  injury  to  all  ?  "  Should  it 
be  according  to  thy  mind  ? "  Experience  shows  the 
constitution  of  the  universe,  or  God,  to  be  such  as  to 
afford  as  much  satisfaction  to  all  of  what  we  call  its 
sentient  parts,  as  is  consistent  with  the  harmony  of  the 
Whole.  To  desire  more  than  this  is  selfishness  ;  and 
selfishness  is  sin.  But  everyone  who  whines  and  groans 
because  he  cannot  honestly  keep  to  his  grandfather's 
notion  of  the  "word  of  God"  is  just  in  this  case.  He 
wants  the  progress  of  the  world  to  be  other  than  it  is 
doomed  to  be,^ — and  that,  to  suit  his  pleasure.  If  we 
could  conceive  of  a  dragon-fly  larva  endowed  with 
intellect  and  sentiment,  we  might  imagine  it  wishing  it 
had  never  been  hatched,  when  the  probably  painful 
process  of  shedding  the  old  skin  begins,  and  therewith  a 
new  life.  But  the  universe,  like  wisdom,  "is  justified 
of  its  children  "  all  the  same. 

Now,  everyone  may  sympathise,  rightly,  with  the 
sentimental  regrets  that  have  sometimes  given  a  momentary 
twinge  of  pain  even  to  a  stout  Luther  when  contrasting 
the  sensuous  and  sometimes  passionate  ritual  of  an 
abandoned  superstition  with  the  thinly  rational  residuum 
of  "  reformed "  religion  left  to  him.  But  those  senti- 
mental regrets  have  hardly  anything  in  common  with 
the  horror  of  great  darkness  and  the  craven  fear  of 
impossible  sacrilege  which  are  described  in  the  passage 
above  quoted  from  the  Nemesis  of  Faith.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  that  passage  is  only  too  true  a 
portrayal    of  the   morbid  or  even    insane  terrors  which, 

1  This  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  fatalism.  I  have  endeavoured  to 
show  the  difference  in  Pantheisjn  :  its  Story  and  Si^s^nificance^  pp.  73-74) 
and  in  Spinoza:  A  Handbook  to  the  Ethics^  pp.  194  and  255. 


TENNYSON'S   "IN    MEMORIAM  "        299 

under  the  prevalence  of  bibliolatry,  have  seized  on  some 
of  the  best  of  men  when  they  began  to  suspect  themselves 
of  scepticism  about  "  the  word  of  God."  Even  the 
fine  poetry  of  In  Memoriam^  often  regarded  as  the 
melodious  charter  of  free  thought  to  the  pious,  implies 
everywhere,  except  perhaps  in  a  few  pantheistic  passages,^ 
an  irreducible  minimum  of  submission  to  the  Bible  as 
God's  word.  The  words — "he  fought  his  doubts,  he 
gathered  strength  " — and  their  context  imply  a  virtuous 
conquest  over  doubt  in  the  interest  of  what  used  to  be 
called  a  "  broad-church "  faith.  But  though  the  fair 
controversialist  who  held  that  "  doubt  is  devil-born  "  is 
sweetly  silenced,  the  duty  of  overcoming  doubt  is  distinctly 
implied.  The  tone  is  very  different  from  and  distinctly 
nobler  than  that  of  the  Nemesis  of  Faith.  Yet  both 
works  alike  illustrate  how,  during  the  nineteenth  century, 
any  symptoms  of  doubt  about  the  divine  and  infallible 
authority  of  the  Bible  were  regarded  with  a  horror  not 
unlike  what  we  feel  towards  the  signs  of  smallpox  or 
plague. 

Now  such  a  mood  of  the  public  mind  could  not  but  be 
fatal  to  any  complete  realisation  of  that  freedom  which  is 
the  British  citizen's  boast.  And  that  realisation  was 
hindered — and  is  still — both  in  politics  and  in  social 
life  and  in  education.  In  politics  the  tyranny  of  an 
Established  Church  was  largely  aided  and  abetted  by  fear 


^  Canto  cxxix.,  "Thy  voice  is  on  the  rolling  air,"  etc.,  seems  to  me 
meaningless  unless  pantheistic.  But  the  following  and  last  canto  certainly 
suggests  a  return  to  Anglican  "pragmatism."  And  cxix.  harps  on  the 
old  theme  of  the  materialism  of  science.  Canto  Iv.,  though  a  noble, 
passionate  outburst,  implies  that  there  is  no  distinction  between  immor- 
tality and  eternal  life  ;  while  the  prelude,  and  the  constant  recurrence  to 
Christmas  legends  as  historic  facts,  are  sufficient  proof  of  the  same 
orthodox  reserve. 


300  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

for  the  national  fetish  ;  for  the  two  most  effective  argu- 
ments for  the  continuance  of  that  anachronism  were  that 
it  was  a  defence  against  "  infidelity  "  and  a  bulwark  against 
Rome.  In  his  work  on  Liberty^  John  Stuart  Mill 
quoted  an  Under-Secretary  of  State  whom  I  cannot  identify 
— and  it  does  not  in  the  least  matter — as  telling  his 
constituents  in  1857  that  they  were  not  to  abuse  the 
"precious  word  toleration."  "As  he  understood  it,  it 
meant  complete  liberty  to  all,  —  freedom  of  worship 
among  Christians  who  worshipped  upon  the  same  foundation. 
It  meant  toleration  of  all  sects  and  denominations  of 
Christians  who  believed  in  the  same  mediation^  ^  It  is 
true  that  the  subject  of  the  foolish  Under-Secretary's 
speech  was  our  government  of  India.  But  well  might 
Mill  ask  :  "  Who,  after  this  imbecile  display,  can  indulge 
the  illusion  that  religious  persecution  has  passed  away 
never  to  return  } "  Certainly  no  one.  The  rack  and  the 
stake  are  inconsistent  with  modern  sensibility.  But  per- 
secution is  not  dependent  upon  particular  instruments  of 
torture,  and  Mill  himself  cites  almost  contemporary  cases 
in  which  refusal  to  own  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God  was 
the  cause  either  of  criminal  penalties  or  of  the  denial  of 
civil  rights.^  The  ungenerous  and  cruel  denial  of  self- 
government  to  Irishmen  in  Irish  affairs  has,  in  recent 
times,  been  much  more  owing  to  Protestant  bibliolatry 
than  to  commercial  jealousy  or  to  enmity  of  race.  And 
we  actually  boast  as  a  triumph  of  Liberalism  the  establish- 
ment of  a  mutilated  University  of  which  Catholics  may 
avail  themselves  without  any  gross  insult  to  their  faith, 
provided  that  they  have  no  University  chapel  within  the 
precincts,  and  nominally  apply  no  test,  even  to  theological 

*  R.P.A.^  reprint,  p.  30  (note).     The  italics  are,  I  believe,  Mill's  own. 
2  Op,  cit.,  p.  28. 


A   STIFF   AND   THIN    MORALITY       301 

professors.  The  encouragement  of  hypocrisy  by  the  last 
proviso  is  self-evident.  And  in  the  meantime  a  Bible- 
worshipping  nation  prides  itself  upon  the  biblical  tone 
which  pervades  its  old  Universities,  while  the  great 
Church  from  which  they  were  taken  over  is  denied  an 
analogous  privilege  for  its  religion  in  Ireland,  though 
some  two-thirds  of  the  people  belong  to  its  flock. 

While,  therefore,  we  may  appreciate  with  thankfulness 
the  stern  fervour  imparted  to  the  men  of  the  English 
Commonwealth  by  their  sacred  book,  into  which  they 
read  their  own  opinions,  and  then  regarded  the  latter 
as  sanctioned  by  the  Word  of  God  ;  and  while  we  own 
that  even  the  inconsistent  spiritual  descendants  of  those 
Puritans,  by  again  reading  into  the  Bible  their  own  ideas, 
have  cherished  a  stifF  and  thin  morality  not  without  its 
use  in  the  godless  times  of  the  Restoration  and  during 
the  ethical  conventionality  or  indifference  of  the  eighteenth 
century, — yet  it  must  be  admitted  that,  making  all  allow- 
ance for  conspicuous  exceptions  already  noted,  the 
popular  worship  of  the  Scriptures  during  the  nineteenth 
century  was  not  an  impulse  to  the  enlargement  of 
freedom,  but  rather  a  hindrance  and  restraint. 


CHAPTER   X 


EPILOGUE 


On  a  review  of  the  whole  subject  the  following  are  the 
main  conclusions  at  which  I  arrive,  and  though,  of  course, 
I  cannot  count  upon  their  being  obvious  to  others,  I  may- 
hope  that  they  are  worthy  of  consideration  by  all. 

I.  The  phenomena  of  the  Bible  and  the  story  of  its 
relations  to  mankind  are  perfectly  consistent  with  what  we 
know  of  the  processes  of  human  evolution,  but  are  not 
in  the  least  suggestive  of  any  miraculous  revelation  from 
a  personal  Being  outside  the  world.  Should  I  be 
honoured — contrary  to  expectation — by  the  attention  of 
readers  who  instinctively  recur  to  the  theophanies  of 
Eden  and  Sinai,  to  the  divine  judgment  by  deluge,  to 
Jahweh's  intercourse  with  Abraham,  and  finally  to  the 
Incarnation  and  Resurrection,  I  can  only  say,  with  all 
respect  for  those  who  still  accept  these  myths  and  visions  as 
facts,  that  in  my  view  they  establish  the  above  conclusion, 
that  we  are  dealing  with  human  evolution  and  not  with 
miraculous  revelation  from  a  personal  Being  indefinitely 
greater  than  man.  But,  in  the  first  place,  I  may  premise 
that  every  one  of  these  incidents  is  a  proper  subject  not  of 
intuition,  like  the  fact  of  our  own  existence,  but  of  historical 

evidence  ;  and  the  evidence  does  not  exist.     It  is  undeni- 

302 


SCRIPTURE    AND    FOLKLORE  303 

able  that  even  the  clergy  and  ministers  whose  duty  it  used 
to  be  to  preach  such  things,  are  rapidly  consigning  them  to 
a  class  of  what  are  called  spiritual  allegories.  I  know  that 
a  majority  still  draw  the  line  at  the  Incarnation  and  Resur- 
rection. But  the  line  is  not  a  very  firm  one,  and  is  often 
obliterated  by  zealous  apostles  of  the  "  New  Theology." 

Premising  so  much,  we  find  the  analogy  between  the 
Bible  stories  and  religious  folklore  all  over  the  world 
to  afford  a  strong  presumption  in  favour  of  human 
evolution.  Creation,  Eden,  the  Deluge,  propitiatory 
sacrifices,  and  even  the  death  and  resurrection  of  a  deity 
are  all  commonly  known  in  heathen  religions.  And  if  in 
Hebrew  folklore  the  stories  take,  in  some  respects,  a 
more  refined  form  than  in  more  primitive  traditions,  that 
is  because  they  were  edited  late  in  the  development  of 
the  Jewish  nation,  and  were  naturally  remoulded  according 
to  the  culture  of  the  time.  Further,  the  moral  progress 
achieved  by  the  influence  of  the  Bible  is  just  what  we 
should  expect  from  a  process  of  human  evolution,  but 
utterly  and  hopelessly  inconsistent  with  the  intervention 
of  an  omnipotent  God.  For  whether  we  accept  or  reject 
Budde's  theory  of  a  religion  established  by  covenant  at 
Sinai,  the  conduct  of  the  conquering  hordes  who  invaded 
Palestine  from  the  south-east,  uncommonly  like  that  of  the 
'Abiri  described  in  the,  perhaps,  contemporary  letters 
found  at  Tel  el  Amarna,^  was  precisely  what  we  should 

1  Of  course  I  do  not  pretend  to  be  an  expert  judge  of  such  things. 
But  the  coincidence,  or  at  any  rate  close  likeness  of  the  names,  the  near 
approximation  in  date — for  what,  in  the  loose  chronology  of  those  times,  is 
a  hundred  years  ? — the  direction  of  the  invasion,  and  the  utter  inability  of 
opposing  scholars  to  say  who  the  'Abiri  were,  if  they  were  not  the 
Hebrews,  seem  very  strong  points.  Such  a  terrible  incursion  as  that 
described  in  the  letters  could  not  be  a  mere  passing  raid.  And  if  not, 
what  became  of  the  'Abiri  ?  The  most  likely  answer  is  that  they  remained 
as  the  Hebrews. 


304  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

expect  from  a  half-savage  race  who  had  agreed  on  a  new 
cult,  but  who  held  it  loosely,  and  who  followed  or 
abandoned  it,  just  as  they  thought  most  expedient,  in  view 
of  their  belief  in  the  surviving  powers  of  the  local  gods, 
and  of  their  doubt  whether  the  newly  adopted  Jahweh 
would  always  be  a  match  for  those  gods  on  their  own 
ground.  The  alternative  assumption  of  some  stiff-necked 
perversity  in  the  Hebrew,  which  made  him  always  more 
disposed  to  worship  the  wrong  god  that  the  right  one,  is 
surely  baseless.  What  we  dimly  discern  in  the  many 
uncertainties  of  the  Hebrew  tradition  is  a  very  natural 
process  in  the  course  of  which  the  desire  to  avoid 
aggravating  the  old  gods  of  the  new  land  was  gradually, 
through  the  efforts  of  priests,  prophets,  and  kings,  super- 
seded by  persistent  appeals  to  a  covenant  with  Jahweh, 
whose  worship  proved  in  the  end  to  have  a  higher  moral 
worth. 

The  above  must  be  taken  as  an  illustration  of  what  is 
meant  by  saying  that  "  the  phenomena  of  the  Bible  and 
the  story  of  its  relations  to  mankind  are  consistent  with 
what  we  know  of  the  processes  of  human  evolution,  but 
are  not  in  the  least  suggestive  of  any  miraculous  revelation 
from  a  personal  Being  outside  the  world."  To  extend 
such  illustrations  further  would  only  be  to  repeat  what 
has  been  said  in  preceding  chapters.  But  a  word  on  the 
last  part  of  the  above  sentence  must  be  added.  For,  if 
anything  so  tremendous  had  occurred  as  the  interference 
of  an  alleged  Almighty  Being  with  the  order  of  the  world 
for  the  purpose  of  saving  man  from  his  wicked  ways,  so 
potent  an  expedient  must  have  had  both  immediate  and 
permanent  results.  But  history  cannot  be  read  like  that 
at  all  ;  for  religious  and  moral  as  well  as  social  and 
scientific  progress,  have    been   gradual,  generally  in    the 


GOD  INVOLVED  IN  HUMAN  EVOLUTION  305 

line  of  least  resistance,  and  always  accommodated  to  the 
changing  conditions  of  natural  human  evolution.  Of 
course  there  have  been  special  times  of  crisis,  times  of  ex- 
uberant growth,  and  times  of  stagnation.  And  I  suppose 
it  seems  to  many  that  the  rapid  spread  of  Christianity, 
mainly  by  the  zeal  of  St  Paul  after  the  resurrection  vision, 
is  proof  positive  of  miraculous  intervention.  But  that 
has  been  already  dealt  with,  and  I  will  not  return  to  it 
here.  I  would  only  remark  that  the  whole  course  of 
Church  history,  from  the  beginning  of  the  second  century 
onward,  is  proof  positive  that  the  development  of  Christi- 
anity was  an  exceedingly  human  affair,  and  that  if  the 
exuberance  of  faith  and  brotherhood  in  the  first  century 
had  been  the  work  of  direct  divine  intervention,  its 
Almighty  Author  would  certainly  have  prevented  its 
submersion  in  heretical  swamps  of  gnosticism  and  sectarian 
strife  about  words. 

But,  before  leaving  the  first  conclusion  from  considera- 
tions adduced  in  this  work,  I  must  guard  myself  against 
misinterpretation  of  the  terms  "  natural "  and  "  human 
evolution."  For  it  is  commonly  supposed  that  they 
exclude  God,  while  on  the  contrary  they  belong  to  a  view 
of  the  world  in  which  eventually  we  shall  see  nothing  but 
God.  With  all  respect  for  men  who  have  done  much  to 
emancipate  thought  from  superstition,  I  am  unable  to  see 
in  the  advent  of  the  human  race  the  appearance  of  a  cause- 
less and  independent  consciousness  capable  not  only  of 
judging  supposed  imperfections  in  the  world,^  but  of  re- 

^  This  is  not  the  place  to  explain  why  I  say  "  supposed  imperfections." 
The  notion  of  imperfection  is  generated  by  the  preconception  that  the 
world  was  made  to  suit  man's  pleasure,  while  he  finds  that  it  does  not 
always  do  so  (see  p.  297).  The  only  sense  in  which  I  attribute  per- 
fection to  the  Universe  is  that  its  innumerable  phases  make  one  infinite 
Whole,  such  that  each  is  necessary  to  all,  and  that  no  single  part  or 

20 


3o6  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

vising  its  constitution  and  rolling  it  in  another  course. 
For,  whenever  and  however  man  appeared,  he  was  evolved 
from  pre-existing  conditions,  and  remained  absolutely 
dependent  on  the  Eternal  Life  of  which  all  things  are 
phases.  Moreover,  the  evolution  of  humanity  never  did 
and  never  can  separate  it  from  what,  as  Herbert  Spencer 
said,  "  was  before  Humanity  and  before  all  other 
things."  We  may  speak  of  this  Eternal  Being  as 
Nature,  as  the  Universe,  or  as  God.  But  after  the 
human  race  appeared  in  the  earliest  fully  self-conscious 
and  reasoning  hordes,  it  was  just  as  much  a  part  of 
Nature  as  when  it  lay  in  embryo  in  the  "  pithecanthropus  " 
or  other  such  form  ;  was  still  just  as  much  dependent 
on  the  eternal  life  of  the  universe,  or  God,  for  the 
exercise  of  the  new  faculties  acquired.  And  so  it  has 
continued  ever  since.  As  a  phase  of  Nature,  man  has 
been  subject  to  the  influences  of  other  phases  of  Nature, 
and,  among  them,  to  those  of  the  Bible.  But  human 
evolution  in  this  sense  does  not  exclude  God  any 
more  than  does  the  natural  evolution  of  a  nightingale 
or  a  rose. 

IL  Our  second  conclusion  is  this  :  that  the  numerical 
insignificance  of  those  tribes  or  nations  who  have  lived 
within  the  influence  of  the  Bible  is  entirely  inconsistent 
with  the  conception  of  it  as  "  the  Word  of  God  "  to  man- 
phase  could  be  destroyed  or  altered  without  destroying  or  mutilating 
the  Whole.  This,  however,  regarded  from  the  human  notion  of  time,  is 
perfectly  consistent  with  phenomenal  changes  such  as  make  upon  us  the 
impression  of  "  evolution."  Nor  is  it  inconsistent  with  social  reform.  The 
doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  force  should  assure  us  that  transmutation 
involves  no  radical  or  ultimate  change  in  the  substance  of  the  finite  phase 
or  thing  transmuted.  The  balance  of  parts  and  their  ontological  relation 
to  the  Whole  remain  the  same.  Perhaps  the  always  residual  difficulty 
lies  in  our  finite  incapacity  for  thinking  of  Eternity  otherwise  than  as 
endless  Time. 


HUMANITY   GREATER   THAN   BIBLE    307 

kind.  The  facts  adduced  in  the  course  of  this  work 
compel  us  to  assign  to  the  Bible  a  place  analogous  to  that 
of  other  tribal  scriptures,  such  as  the  Vedas,  Zendavesta, 
and  Koran,  each  of  which,  to  its  own  people,  was  a  divine 
revelation,  but  which  we  all  regard  as  having  been  pro- 
duced by  a  natural  process  of  human  evolution.  But 
we  are  perfectly  free  to  consider  the  Bible  superior  to 
any  of  them  if  we  find  it  so.  If  so,  however,  we 
must  be  content  to  regard  that  superiority  as  a 
difference  of  degree  and  not  of  kind.  Moreover, 
we  have  to  bear  in  mind  that  even  amongst  the  small 
minority  of  the  human  race  who  have  known  the 
Bible,  that  knowledge  was  not,  until  quite  recent  times, 
direct,  but  only  indirect,  through  the  services  of  the 
Church.  Exception  must,  of  course,  be  made  of  the 
clergy,  though  even  they,  as  Charlemagne  complained, 
were  often  and  for  long  periods  very  ignorant  of  the 
sacred  text. 

III.  A  Book  such  as  this,  known  only  to  a  small  minority 
of  mankind,  and  prized  as  conferring  upon  them  some  ex- 
clusive privileges,  naturally  acquired  not  only  a  sacredness, 
but  such  a  power  of  divine  guardianship  as  the  Trojans 
attributed  to  their  palladium,  or  such  as  more  savage 
tribes  ascribed  each  to  their  own  particular  fetish.  This 
degradation  of  an  interesting  and  in  many  parts  noble  and 
inspiring  literature  was  aggravated  when  intelligent  know- 
ledge came  to  be  considered  unnecessary  for  the  evocation 
of  its  powers,  and  the  muttering  of  its  syllables  by  an  un- 
learned clergy  was  thought  sufficient  to  appease  God.  It 
might  be  supposed  that  such  a  desecration  of  the  Book 
could  only  be  possible  where  conservative  superstition 
insisted  on  the  continued  use  in  Church  services  of  the 
dead  languages,  which  even  to  many  priests  had  become 


3o8  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

unknown  tongues.  But  the  recent  and  perhaps  not  yet 
extinct  custom  to  which  1  have  alluded  (p.  13)  of  post- 
ing up  detached  biblical  texts  in  railway  waiting-rooms, 
or  employing  "  sandwich  men  "  to  carry  them  on  boards 
through  the  streets,  would  have  been  impossible  unless 
some  tinge  of  fetishism  had  mingled  with  Protestant 
reverence  for  the  Bible. 

IV.  This  unfortunate  perversion  and  degradation  of 
the  Bible  has  been  gradual  and  incidental,  not  in  the  least 
caused  by  its  own  claims,  or  arising  out  of  its  own 
essential  nature.  The  scribes  who  first  gathered  into  a 
codex  the  traditional  fragments  of  Mosaic  law,  believed, 
no  doubt,  in  a  vague  manner  that  these  relics  originated 
in  a  divine  sanction.  But  so  did  Hammurabi,  when  he 
compiled  his  code  some  thousand  years  before.  And  the 
compilers,  distinguished  by  critics  as  primarily  E  and  J, 
who  embodied  the  law  in  an  account  of  origins,  had 
certainly  no  such  awe  of  their  sources  of  information  as 
now  overmasters  the  readers  of  Genesis,  Exodus,  and 
Joshua.  It  is,  no  doubt,  difficult  for  the  modern  mind  to 
put  itself  by  imagination  into  the  position  of  the  ancients. 
For  we  now — wrongly — distinguish  things  secular  and 
sacred,  while  to  the  ancients  divine  action  was  everywhere. 
To  modern  popular  opinion  some  literature  is  sacred  and 
the  rest  profane.  But  when  letters  and  writing  were  a 
miracle,  and  were  employed  only  in  the  service  of  the 
deity  or  his  vicegerents,  all  writings  were  sacred.  Yet 
this  did  not  in  the  least  imply  such  slavery  to  the  letter 
as  characterises  modern  bibliolatry.  For  each  successive 
copyist  had  no  scruple  whatever  about  accommodating 
his  predecessor's  work  to  the  needs  or  the  taste  of  the 
new  age.  Thus  the  fetishistic  awe  in  which  the  Old 
Testament  was  held  by  the  later    Jews,  and  the    whole 


APOTHEOSIS   OF   THE   BIBLE  309 

Bible  by  Christians  after  the  fourth  century,  was  entirely 
unknown  to  the  makers  of  the  Book.  In  fact,  the  case 
of  the  Bible  in  this  respect  is  entirely  analogous  to  that 
of  all  other  sacred  books  of  the  world,  except  the  Koran. 
For  this  latter  was  issued  full-fledged,  as  a  sort  of  Jove's 
eagle,  a  messenger  of  God  through  his  prophet.  But 
the  case  of  the  other  books  already  mentioned  was  en- 
tirely different.  For  they,  like  the  Bible,  were  originally 
the  embodiments  of  popular  tradition,  edited  and  re- 
edited  by  philosophers  or  scribes.  And  it  was  only 
after  ages  of  custom  that  they  reached  the  dignity  or 
degradation  of  a  fetish.  We  ought  not,  therefore,  to 
allow  the  superstition  of  its  ignorant  devotees  to  pre- 
judice us  in  our  estimate  of  the  value  of  this  venerable 
Book. 

V.  It  may  be  freely  allowed  that  this  apotheosis  has 
given  authority  to  the  best  parts  of  the  Bible,  and  that 
they  have  thus  gained  in  power  over  the  minds  and 
consciences  of  men.  Of  this  I  have  given  illustrations 
in  the  first  chapter  and  elsewhere.  But  a  fatal  nemesis 
has  followed,  in  that  the  same  power  and  authority  have 
been  given  to  the  worst  and  most  demoraHsing  parts  of 
the  Book.  If  the  late  Psalmist  tells  us  that,  "  Like  as  a 
father  pitieth  his  children,  so  Jahweh  pitieth  them  that 
fear  him,"  the  earlier  compiler  of  his  people's  history 
tells  us  that  the  same  Jahweh  ^  said  to  Abraham,  "  Take 
now  thy  son,  thine  only  son,  Isaac,  whom  thou  lovest  .  .  . 

1  In  the  compilation  out  of  two  older  documents,  or  in  the  later  editing 
of  the  story,  the  name  Jahweh  has  been  introduced  where  apparently 
Elohim  alone  formerly  stood  (Carpenter  and  Battersby).  But  I  have 
only  to  do  with  the  Bible  as  authorised  by  the  Church.  The  rescue  of 
Isaac  by  an  angel  is  little  to  the  point.  It  cannot  cancel  the  fact  that  a 
human  sacrifice — the  sacrifice  of  an  only  son — was  thought  a  demand 
proper  for  the  deity  to  make. 


3IO  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

and  offer  him  for  a  burnt-offering."  The  lawgivers  and 
judges  of  all  Christian  ages  until  comparatively  recent 
times  defended  by  Bible  texts  their  savage  penalties 
inflicted  on  crazy  old  women  convicted  of  an  impossible 
crime.  Contemporary  hymn-books  are  still  full  of  pagan 
superstitions  about  the  power  of  blood  to  propitiate 
God.  And  recently,  within  my  knowledge,  a  child, 
attending  a  summer  morning  service  on  the  seashore, 
who,  in  answer  to  a  question  about  the  best  way 
of  getting  to  heaven,  said  she  must  live  a  good  and 
loving  life,  was  told.  No,  that  was  not  right  ;  she 
must  be  "Sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  Jesus."  What 
sense  the  young  Oxford  zealot  conducting  the  service 
attached  to  these  materiaHstic  words,  it  is  difficult  to 
conceive.  But  he  was,  of  course,  amply  justified  by 
the  religious  instruction  which  led  him  to  attach  an 
equal  value  to  the  Bible's  coarsest  phrases  and  most 
spiritual  flights.  Such  are  only  typical  instances  of 
the  modes  in  which  the  Bible  has  been  degraded  into 
a  fetish. 

VI.  The  parts  of  the  Bible  really  authoritative  are  so 
because  they  call  attention  to  self-evident  truth,  and  not 
at  all  because  they  contain  any  "  revealed  word  of  God." 
And  no  "  higher  criticism,"  or  any  controversy  about  the 
authenticity  of  books,  or  the  historicity  of  miracles,  has 
the  slightest  tendency  to  lessen  the  authority  of  such 
utterances  as  these.  We  may,  indeed,  have  to  make 
allowance  for  differences  between  far  distant  ages  in 
mental  habit  and  choice  of  language  to  express  substantially 
identical  thought.  Yet  this  does  not  hinder  our  accept- 
ance of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  i  Cor.  xiii.,  Rom.  xii., 
and  such  passages  as  words  of  eternal  life.  But  this  is 
not  because  they  were  spoken  by  Christ  or  written  by  his 


THE   TEN   COMMANDMENTS  311 

first  followers  ;  it  is  because  they  touch  the  heart  as  self- 
evident  truth.^ 

Nor  is  the  Old  Testament  wanting  in  such  passages 
which  gain  rather  than  lose  authority  as  true  freedom  of 
thought  prevails.  The  "  Ten  Commandments  "  cannot, 
for  reasons  previously  adduced,  be  reckoned  among  such 
passages.  Yet  some  of  them,  such  as  "  Thou  shalt  not 
kill  "  and  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal  "  —  against  which  the 
whole  action  of  Church  and  State  since  Constantine  has 
been  one  constant  rebellion  —  seem  to  be  coming  into 
more  honour  now  precisely  in  proportion  as  all  belief  in 
their  supernatural  origin  dies  away.  For  humanitarian 
legislation  and  the  belated  movement  in  favour  of  "  peace 
on  earth "  look  like  an  adoption  of  the  former,  with 
certain  reserves,  by  natural  morality  ;  while  contemporary 
social  reforms  consist  largely  in  an  application  of  the 
latter  to  the  depredations  of  the  successful  rich.^  But 
happily  there  are,  in  the  Old  Testament,  better  illustra- 
tions than  the  Ten  Commandments  of  self-evident  moral 
truth.  For  instance,  when  the  Psalmist  asks  who  is 
worthy  of  the  divine  presence — which  to  Spinoza  would 
mean  "  the  intellectual  love  of  God  " — he  replies,  "  He  that 

1  In  applying  this  to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  of  course  ample 
allowance  has  to  be  made  for  orientalisms  and  a  habit  of  arresting 
attention  by  paradox.  But  those  who  regard  it  as  utterly  unpractical, 
have  not  sufficiently  considered  the  cases  of  George  Fox,  or,  a  far  better 
man,  John  Woolman  and  a  host  of  the  early  Quakers. 

2  This  is  especially  the  case  with  land  law  reform,  which  seeks,  as  yet 
very  inadequately,  to  remedy  the  cruel  and  monstrous  wrong  inflicted  on 
the  vast  majority  of  the  community  through  the  appropriation  by  a  few 
of  the  land  on  which  all  must  live.  This  does  not  mean  the  abolition  of 
private  holdings  nor  the  division  of  the  land  into  unworkable  fractions. 
But  it  does  mean  a  sufficient  payment  by  the  few  landed  to  the  many 
landless,  through  taxation,  for  the  privilege  enjoyed  by  the  former.  There 
is  no  conceivable  revival  of  the  eighth  commandment  which  would  do 
more  good  than  this. 


312  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

walketh  uprightly  and  speaketh  the  truth  in  his  heart. 
He  that  backbiteth  not  with  his  tongue,  nor  doeth  evil 
to  his  neighbour,"  and  so  forth.  It  is  certainly  not  be- 
cause the  nameless  Psalmist  says  these  things,  still  less 
because  we  suppose  the  words  to  have  been  dictated  by 
God,  that  our  hearts  respond  to  such  words.  Their  worth 
is  self-evident.  There  are  very  many  other  golden 
sayings  in  the  Old  Testament,  such  as  depend  for  their 
authority  neither  on  miracle  nor  revelation.  On  some 
of  them,  no  doubt,  rationalists  inevitably  differ,  because 
they  are  either  bent  upon  the  impossible  task  of  excluding 
God  from  human  thought,  or  else  they  have  not  settled 
within  themselves  what  meaning  should  be  attached  to 
the  name.  But  to  Spinoza  the  prophet's  words,  "  Thou 
wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace  whose  mind  is  stayed  on 
thee,  because  he  trusteth  in  thee,"  would  be  self-evident, 
and  indeed  it  pervaded  all  his  experience.  He,  however, 
knew  what  he  meant  by  God,  and  was  always  at  peace 
under  curses,  persecution,  and  poorly  paid  labour,  because 
he  was  freely  acting  out  the  divine  idea  in  himself  as  a 
part  of  the  perfect  Whole  which  was  God.  Such  doctrines 
of  the  Bible  are  gaining  in  authority,  not  losing  it,  as 
the  legends  of  a  miraculous  revelation  die  away.  And 
the  Bible  writers  had  a  way  of  putting  them  such  as  will 
always  appeal  to  the  feelings  of  "  the  wayfaring  man " 
with  a  directness  that  no  philosophic  moralist  can  attain. 

Very  different  is  the  case  with  such  religious  doctrines 
as  have  been  received  only  because  "  revealed."  Perhaps 
the  best  illustration  we  can  take  is  the  fetishistic  conception 
of  sin,  just  now  a  subject  of  acute  controversy  between 
the  Old  and  the  New  Theology.  For,  according  to  the 
old  notion,  sin  is  something  worse  than  doing  evil  to  one's 
neighbour  or   the   commonwealth.       Whether   the   Rev. 


SIN  313 

R.  J.  Campbell  is  absolutely  right  in  identifying  it  simply 
and  exclusively  with  selfishness,  1  will  not  undertake  to 
say.  And  the  point  is  not  important.  But  people  of 
rational  religion  are  much  indebted  to  him  for  the  earnest- 
ness and  incisive  force  with  which  he  has  taught  through 
his  sermons  and  books  the  superstitious  absurdity  of 
supposing  that  there  could  be  any  such  thing  as  sin 
against  God  in  the  sense  that  it  is  God's  sanctity  alone 
that  suffers  or  is  desecrated  thereby.  As  I  understand 
him,  he  holds  that  God  is  only  affected  by  wrong-doing 
indirectly,  through  his  creatures  who  are  injured  thereby. 
This  is  something  very  different  from  the  savage's  notion 
that  his  fetish  is  vexed  and  wronged  by  the  introduction 
of  something  "  taboo "  into  the  precincts  of  the  sacred 
hut  ;  very  different  also  from  the  ecclesiastical  notion 
that  not  only  is  humanity  wronged,  but  a  divine  presence 
is  desecrated  by  a  murder  or  a  suicide  within  a  consecrated 
shrine.  The  whole  so-called  Law  of  Holiness,  incor- 
porated after  the  Captivity  with  the  Pentateuch,  is  instinct 
with  this  fetishistic  idea  that  God  could  be  the  direct 
object  of  man's  improprieties  or  wrong-doing.  And 
hence  was  generated  first  the  Jewish  and  then  the  Christian 
notion  of  sin,  of  which,  however,  I  am  thankful  to  say,  I 
can  find  no  trace  in  the  most  probably  genuine  teaching 
of  the  Founder  himself.  This  superstition  of  sin,  as 
something  worse  than  wrong-doing  to  God's  creatures, 
depends  altogether  on  traditional  theophanies  or  revelations 
in  which  the  local  or  national  god  claims  for  himself  a 
special  awe  and  reverence  belonging  to  no  self-evident 
moral  code,  and  dependent  for  its  enforcement  only  on 
misinterpretations  of  Nature.  For  thunderbolts,  plague, 
pestilence,  and  famine  were  supposed  to  be  the  sanctions 
of  this  sacred  horror,  and  to  magnify  the  sin  against  the 


314  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

god  above  any  wrong  done  to  man.  The  manifest  decay 
of  this  baseless  beHef  is  the  best  illustration  I  can  give  of 
the  neglect  into  which  all  doctrines  are  falling  that  depend 
upon  evidence  of  miracle  or  supernatural  revelation. 
Beyond  this  it  is  needless  to  allude  to  the  rapid  break-up 
of  creeds  about  Trinities  and  Incarnations  and  Atonements. 
I  use  the  plural  advisedly,  for  there  are  now  as  many 
different  interpretations  of  them  as  there  are  clergy  schools. 
VII.  Another  conclusion  which  I  cannot  help  drawing 
— and  I  do  so  with  renewed  expression  of  obligation  to 
pioneers  whom  I  may  think  misguided,  but  must  always 
respect — is  that  the  best  defence  of  bibliolatry  has  con- 
sisted in  the  extravagances  of  "  rationalists,"  who  make  a 
dead  set  against  our  Bible,  and  while  allowing  much 
value  to  the  code  of  Hammurabi — extensively  adopted 
in  the  Pentateuch — and  to  the  scriptures  of  the  Aryan 
invaders  of  India,  as  well  as  to  the  Buddhist  writings, 
and  even  to  the  Koran  —  largely  a  plagiarism  from 
Judaism  and  Christianity — can  yet  see  nothing  whatever 
in  the  Bible  but  a  record  of  human  folly  exploited  in  the 
interests  of  designing  priests.  Let  us  have  fair  play  even 
when  the  Bible  is  the  game.  Happily  there  are  many 
rationalists  of  a  more  judicial  mind,  and  Mr  Charles  T. 
Gorham,  in  his  Ethics  of  the  Great  Religions^  has  well  shown 
how  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Scriptures  advocate  at  least 
no  lower  an  ideal  than  other  sacred  books  of  the  nations. 
But  the  bitterness  of  other  so-called  "rationalistic"  writers, 
and  their  blindness  to  the  fact  that  the  Jewish  and 
Christian  Scriptures,  equally  with  the  sacred  writings 
of  other  religions,  are  normal,  natural,  and  honest 
examples  of  human  evolution,  have  done  much  to 
prejudice  religious  people  against  their  arguments,  and 
have,  so  far,  strengthened  the  defences  of  "  the  faith." 


BIBLE   AS   THE   WORD   OF    MAN       315 

VIII.  My  final  word  is  that  the  Bible  is  not  dead,  but 
has  an  indefinite  if  not  immortal  life  before  it  ;  for  the 
entire  abandonment  of  supernatural  claims,  so  far  from 
lessening  its  influence  in  the  coming  age,  will  confirm  and 
extend  it.  True  it  is  that  my  poor  friend  referred  to  in 
the  first  chapter,  and  the  millions  of  whom  he  was  a  type, 
could  find  no  use  for  the  Bible  if  it  was  not  to  them  the 
Word  of  God.  But  even  then  there  were  solitary  souls 
who  thought  it  much  more  precious  as  the  word  of  man. 
And  if  it  be  true,  as  I  think  it  is,  that  moral  and  social 
evolution  are  largely  dependent  on  stored  experience, 
surely  that  storage  of  experience  is  most  effective  which 
is  most  accessible  to  the  "  common  people  "  whom  Jesus 
loved.  Now,  I  know  that  there  have  been  and  still 
survive,  epics  and  folk-songs  and  folklore  which  store 
up,  sometimes  in  beautiful,  sometimes  in  strange  and 
repulsive  forms,  the  moral  and  social  experience  of  past 
times.  But  explain  it  how  we  may,  there  was  something 
in  the  Hebrew  genius  which  enabled  it  to  express  the 
moral  and  spiritual  experience  of  successive  ages  in  forms 
which  had  a  singular  attractiveness  for  the  mixed  races 
with  whom  lay  the  moulding  of  the  future  world.  That 
its  history  was  false,  its  morality  often  imperfect,  and 
in  its  earlier  records  repugnant,  is  now  extensively 
admitted.  But  that  did  not  prevent  its  better  portions 
from  stimulating  the  moral  sense  of  simple  souls  who 
traced  to  Adam's  disobedience  all  our  woe,  and  who  were 
incapable  of  picturing  evolution,  or  the  working  of  the 
world's  eternal  life,  as  other  than  the  struggles  of  a  divine 
Being  with  a  recalcitrant  race  for  whom  he  designed  a 
miraculous  plan  of  salvation. 

But  what  of  the  times  when  there  shall  be  no  more  such 
simple  souls,  when  everyone  will  recognise  that  God  and 


3i6  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

the  Universe  are  one,  and  that  the  only  inspiration  is  the 
world's  eternal  life,  however  various  the  forms  it  may 
take  ?  Will  the  Bible  then  be  useless,  or  only  a  curious  relic 
for  students  of  forgotten  lore  ?  If  I  think  not,  perhaps 
this  may,  with  some  plausibility,  be  attributed  to  the  fact 
that  since  I  could  read  at  all,  the  Book  has  scarcely  been 
out  of  my  hands,  and  that  at  every  step  in  my  advance 
toward  a  purer  faith  than  that  of  earlier  years,  I  have 
found  in  it  the  "  seeds  immortal "  of  the  grandest  human 
hopes.  But  there  are  reasons  outside  personal  experience 
for  thinking  as  I  do.  For  instance,  Spinoza  recommends 
that  short  sentences  compressing  into  a  few  words  decisive 
moral  principles  should  be  memorised,  so  that  we  may 
always  readily  recur  to  them  whenever  occasion  may 
arise.^  Of  course  it  is  to  be  understood  that  such  moral 
principles  have  already  become  at  times  matters  of 
experience,  and  have  been  found  to  work.  Thus  the 
words  of  Brutus  in  Shakespeare's  Julius  C^sar :  "  Be 
patient  till  the  last,"  will  recur  to  many  troubled  minds, 
irrespective  of  their  immediate  context,  and  yet  laden  with 
all  the  meaning  of  human  impatience  rebuked  by  events. 
So,  in  fits  of  ill  temper  or  rash  condemnation  of  the 
eternal  order,  the  recalled  words  sound  like  the  knell  of 
slain  self-confidence,  and  bring,  if  not  happiness,  at  least 
peace.  Again,  when  Hamlet,  either  mad  or  sane,  let  fall 
the  words  "  There  is  nothing  either  good  or  bad,  but 
thinking  makes  it  so,"  ^  he  pronounced,  concerning  the 

*  Ethics^  Part  v.,  Prop,  x.,  Scholium. 

2  The  memory  instantly  recurs  to  the  contradiction  contained  in  the 
words  : 

"  O  who  can  hold  a  fire  in  his  hand 
By  thinking  on  the  frosty  Caucasus.?" 

Both  passages  are  true  to  human  nature,  but  that  quoted  in  the  text  is 
more  salutary. 


THE   BIBLE   IN   THE   NEW   AGE       317 

power  of  the  mind  over  the  body,  an  aphorism  which 
anticipated  by  several  generations  not  only  quack  methods 
of  "  faith  healing  "  and  so-called  "  Christian  Science,"  but 
the  more  sober  truth  realised  in  the  legitimate  practice  of 
medicine,  that  a  sound  mind  can  often  do  much  to 
preserve  or  even  restore  a  sound  body.  And  in  many 
moods  of  ill-humoured  discontent  the  recollection  of  the 
words  brings  alleviation  if  not  a  cure. 

Now,  if  this  be  so,  what  an  exhaustless  mine  of  moral 
wealth,  and  what  unfathomable  sources  of  inspiration, 
must  ever  remain  for  the  "  common  people "  in  the 
Bible's  noblest  words  !  Shakespeare  has  never  been 
handicapped  by  a  superstitious  ascription  to  him  of 
miraculous  inspiration  or  infallibility,  and  therefore  he 
passes  through  every  age  like  a  star  through  changing 
clouds,  his  brightness  above  reach  of  evanescent  vapours. 
And  when  the  Bible  comes  to  be  taken  simply  for  what  it 
is  worth,  as  the  outcome  not  of  a  single,  but  of  a  racial 
genius,  with  a  strange  power  to  touch  the  souls  of  the 
Western  peoples,  its  disembarrassment  from  a  weight  of 
impossible  doctrines  will  discover  to  us  that  "touch  of 
nature"  which  "makes  the  whole  world  kin,"  and,  to  quote 
its  own  metaphors,  its  "  word  will  have  free  course  and 
be  glorified."  Then  the  unlearned  man  will  no  longer  be 
perplexed  by  an  obligation  to  accept  Oriental  paradoxes, 
metaphors,  and  folklore  as  prosaic  facts.  The  return  to 
something  of  the  simplicity  of  childhood  will  no  longer 
be  barred  by  fantastic  doctrines  of  an  impossible  rebirth. 
The  declaration  that  the  "  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be 
ministered  unto  but  to  minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a 
ransom  for  many"  will  not  be  darkened  by  an  odious 
superstition  of  propitiation,  but  will  be  called  to  mind 
when  a  brave   coal-miner  sacrifices  his  life    to  save   his 


3i8  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

fellows,  or  the  captain  of  a  foundering  ship,  with  the  way 
of  escape  open  to  him,  sees  everyone  else  safe  and  dies  at 
his  post.  The  Psalmist's  exhortation  to  "  Trust  in  the 
Lord  and  do  good  "  will  not  have  less  but  greater  force 
when  "  the  Lord  "  is  taken  as  the  Universe  itself  in  all 
the  plenitude  of  its  eternal  life  and  order. 

In  fact,  the  Bible  teems  with  pregnant  utterances  such 
as  the  wayfaring  man  may  use  in  accordance  with  Spinoza*s 
advice,^  provided  only  that  when  complete  in  themselves, 
they  may  be  taken  apart  from  the  context,  and  in  entire 
independence  of  the  supernatural  complications  in  which 
tradition  may  have  involved  them.  It  is  futile  to  scout 
such  a  natural  use  of  the  Bible  as  impossible  or  in- 
effectual ;  {sohitur  amhulando).  Thousands  who  love  the 
Bible  are  using  it  in  no  other  way  now,  and  they  will 
soon  become  millions.  It  may  be  true  that  the  ultimate 
truth  of  Pantheism  can  scarcely  enter  into  the  world- 
view  {Weltanschauung)  of  the  multitude  for  generations  to 
come.  But  their  ideas,  to  adopt  the  venerable  Tolstoy's 
phrase,  of  "  what  they  call  God  "  are  constantly  expanding 
and  must  ultimately  include  the  "  All  in  all."  Meantime 
many  biblical  aphorisms,  proverbs,  and  other  pregnant 
words  expressing  the  will  of  "  what  they  call  God " 
concerning  the  higher  manhood  bring  that  will  very  "  nigh 
them  in  their  heart  and  in  their  mouth  that  they  may  do 
it."  Thus,  from  Abraham's  inception  of  a  peace  policy, "  Let 
there  be  no  strife,  I  pray  thee,  between  me  and  thee  .... 
for  we  be  brethren,"  to  the  bold  words  of  Jesus — "  I  say 
unto  you,  love  your  enemies  " — the  whole  Bible,  notwith- 
standing ;the  savagery  of  much  in  its  earlier  parts,  is  full 
of  brief  sayings  that  prepare  us   for    a  time  when  men 

^  As  is  well  known,  Spinoza  assigned  to  the  Bible  a  morally  regulative 
function,  and  not  a  power  of  revelation. 


TRUTH   AND   LOVE  319 

shall  learn  war  no  more.  Though,  as  I  have  admitted, 
the  Ten  Commandments  are  weak  in  regard  to  truthful- 
ness, yet,  from  the  time  when  the  moral  consciousness  of 
Israel  had  developed  far  enough  to  recognise  that  God 
"  desires  truth  in  the  inward  parts  "  to  the  declaration  of 
the  Seer  in  Revelation  that  into  the  perfect  social  state 
there  shall  in  nowise  enter  "  anything  that  maketh  a  lie," 
there  are  abundant  brief  utterances  sharp  enough  to  sting, 
if  it  were  possible,  the  conscience  of  the  modern  Pharisee. 
And  though  the  old  Testament  has  too  many  passages 
lurid  with  blood  feuds,  sanguinary  bigotry,  and  cruel 
deeds  supposed  to  please  God,  yet,  from  the  command  in 
Leviticus,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as  thyself,"  to 
the  unknown  Ephesian  mystic's  words, "  God  is  love,  and 
he  that  dwelleth  in  love  dwelleth  in  God  and  God  in 
him,"  the  Bible  as  a  whole  abounds  in  passages  calculated 
to  prepare  men  for  the  triumph  of  rational  socialism  ^  in 
the  Kingdom  of  God  or  Republic  of  Man. 

The  evolution  of  man  will  some  day  be  universally 
regarded  not  as  a  series  of  catastrophes,  or  divine  inter- 
ventions, creating  disconnected  epochs,  but  as  a  graduated 
and  self-consistent  process.  That  process  can  never, 
indeed,  be  rightly  conceived  as  a  separate,  self-contained 
whole,  having  a  clearly  conceived  beginning  and  a  definite 
end.  But  at  least,  to  our  human  apprehension,  it  will 
simulate  unity  within  its  finite  proportions  as  part  of  an 
infinite    Whole.     When  this  view   of    human   evolution 


^  Between  rational  socialism  and  communism  there  is  a  great  difference. 
Readers  of  the  above  and  other  previous  forecasts  of  ultimate  religion 
must  perhaps  again  be  reminded  that  I  have  not  overlooked  the  suffering 
that  is  in  the  world.  But  on  that  I  can  only  again  refer  to  Spinoza's 
doctrine  of  "inadequate  ideas."  It  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of 
this  work.  But  I  have  treated  of  it  elsewhere,  in  Spinoza  :  A  Handbook 
to  the  Ethics^  Constable  &  Co.,  Ltd. 


320  MAN   AND   THE   BIBLE 

becomes  universal,  no  one  will  think  of  eliminating 
the  Bible  as  a  notable  and  influential  factor  among  the 
influences  that  have  made  the  foremost  races  what  they 
are.  The  superstitious  belief  natural  to  the  childhood  of 
man,  that  here  we  have  a  message  from  a  manlike  God, 
of  which  every  word  is  true,  will  indeed  have  evaporated 
into  the  cloudless  sky  of  a  brighter  intellectual  day.  But 
equally  superstitious  will  seem  the  notion  entertained  by 
a  few  sciolists  intoxicated  with  a  partial  emancipation  from 
authority,  that  this  great  literature  is  merely  the  work  of 
designing  priestcraft  and  interested  fraud.  On  the 
contrary,  the  Bible  will  always  keep  its  place  as  the  most 
precious  treasure  ever  inherited  by  any  "  people  of  the 
Book,"  and  will  vindicate  more  and  more  against  its 
ignorant,  misled,  or  wilful  misinterpreters  of  the  past,  its 
claim  to  be  a  still  living  record  of  the  struggle  of  man 
toward  purity,  freedom,  and  light. 


INDEX 


Abijah,  6. 

'Abiri,  303  and  note. 
Abraham,    his    mixed    morality, 
221. 
and  Isaac,  coincidences  in  their 

matrimonial  troubles,  4. 
his    faith,    why    imputed     for 
righteousness,  237-8. 
Acts,  Book  of,  231-2. 

its  precedents  for  unprincipled 
compromise,  236. 
Adultery,     in     Sermon    on    the 
Mount   and  in  7th  com- 
mandment, 162  and  note. 
Agag  and  Samuel,  220. 
Age  of  great  preachers,  137-8. 
Albigenses,  70,  71. 

and  spiritual  successors,  97. 
Alchemy,  278. 
Alcuin,  89. 

Aldhelm,  Bp.  of  Sherborne,  86. 
revises  Bible  for  Charlemagne, 

93- 
Alexandrian  Codex,  151  «. 
Alfred   the  king  and  the  Bible, 

83-4. 
Ambo,  140. 

Ambrose,  121,  124,  127,  128. 
Amen,  257. 
Anabaptist  rising,  60. 
Ananias  and  Sapphira,  231. 
"Ancient    Mariner"    saved    by 

faith,  239. 
Andragathias,  138. 
Anicetus,  157. 
Animism,  175  and  note. 


321 


Annihilation,  desire  for,  204. 
Antonio  and  *'  holy  writ,"  55. 
"Anxious  inquirers,"  10. 
Apocalypses,    Jewish,    in    N.T., 

200  n. 
Apocrypha,  O.T.,  194. 
Apollos,  150. 
"Apostle,"  the,  as  title  of  book, 

99,  129. 
Apostolic  Fathers,  275-6. 
Apotheosis    of    the    Bible,    37, 

177,  309. 
Aptitude  and  opportunity,  140. 
Arcadius,  140,  144. 
Archimedes,  277. 
Areopagus,  234. 
Arianism    excluded    from    early 

France,  69. 
Aristotle,  277. 
Armenia,  69. 

Arminians  and  Rom.  ix.,  169. 
Assumptions     of     anachronistic 

religion,  168. 
Astrology,  278. 
Atomic  theory,  278. 
Augustine,    St,    of    Hippo,    121, 
176. 
City  of  God,  131,  275. 
Confessions,  126  n.,  275. 
early  ignorance  of  Bible,  123. 
his  doctrine  of  creation,  130. 
his  judgment  of  the  Bible  and 

the  world,  274. 
his    mingled     mysticism'^  and 

materialism,  135. 
his  pagan  traditions,  129. 
21 


322 


INDEX 


Augustine,  St,  his  sacramental- 
ism,  125,   126. 

his  strange  ideas  of  moral 
proportion,  126  and 
note. 

his  views  entirely  inconsistent 
with    Protestantism,    127. 

idea  of  the  Church,  131. 

introduction  to  fourth  Gospel, 
132. 

notion   of  the  universe,    131, 

135- 
revelation  a  necessity  to  him, 

i3i>  134. 
story  of  his   conversion,  124, 

etc. 
tragedy  and  bathos,  133,  134. 
unequal  treatment  of  Scripture, 

126,  131-2. 
Augustine     the     missionary     to 

Britain,  116,  etc. 
contrast  with  St  Paul,  117. 
his     conference    with    British 

Church,  1 19-120. 
not  a  Bible  colporteur,  118. 
preaches   church   rather    than 

gospel,  117. 

Baalim,  180. 

Babi  sect,  259. 

Babylon  and  creation  myth,  183. 

Bacon,  Roger,  82,  263,  277. 

Bail  of  Abbeville,  78. 

account  of  "  Apostolical  Coun- 
cil," 270-1. 

puts  Church  before  Bible,  78. 
Balaam,  221. 
Bane  =  ban,  68. 

Baptismal  regeneration,  9,  135-6. 
Barnabas,  150,  151  n. 
Barnabas  and  Paul,  233. 
Barons  and  Papal  exactions,  65. 
Basil  I.,  98. 
Bade,  the  Venerable,  84,  85,  88, 

116,  117,  118. 
Beecher,  Ward,  145. 
Belief  not  the  same  as  faith,  240. 


Bertha,  Queen,  117. 
Bethlehem,  water  of,  184. 
Bible  and  God,  174. 

"and  Bible  alone,"  148. 

and  heresy,  62. 

and  pre-existing  religions,  172. 

"and  water,"  31. 

apotheosis  of,  37,  177,  309. 

as  a  letter  from  God,  3,   10, 
12. 

as  "an  English  classic,"  21. 

as   ark   of  the   covenant,   88, 
146. 

as  fetish,  31,  43,  55. 

as  "  God's  book,"  4. 

as  household  god,  2,  38. 

as  palladium,  38,  307. 

as  personal  charter,   147. 

as  school-book,  81  and  note. 

as  shechinah,  94. 

as  the  word  of  man,  315. 

as  title-deeds  of  Church,    94, 

131J  145- 
as  word  of  God,  11. 
authenticated  by  the  Church, 

44,  46,  78,  1 5 1-2. 
authority  of,  self-evident  when 

real,  310. 
buying  in  20th  and   i8th  cen- 
turies, 40. 
chained,  53. 

change  in  its  position,  35. 
dangers  of,  in  view  of  mediaeval 

Church,  16. 
debt  of  its  compilers  to  Sum- 

erians    and    Babylonians, 

217. 
dictated  by  God,  13. 
difference  (alleged)  from  other 

books  not  only  in  degree 

but  kind,  12. 
doubtful  influence  on  freedom, 

286,  289. 
early  use  of  name,  146. 
fear  of  translating  it,  63. 
higher  criticism  cannot  touch 

real  authority  of,  310. 


INDEX 


323 


Bible,  how  known  in  5  th  and  4th 

centuries,  123-4,  146. 
identified  with  religion,  171. 
in  Shakespeare,  54-58. 
in  the  future,  316. 
in  workshop  debates,  30. 
induces     in    some     a     moral 

colour  blindness,  220. 
influences     in      politics      not 

wholly  regrettable,  293. 
insignificance   of  its  realm  in 

space  and  time,  306. 
its  afilatus  of  Divinity,  12. 
its  cost,  39,  50. 
its   influence    compared    with 

that  of  the  Church,  153. 
its   literary  beauties   unappre- 
ciated by  devotees,  21,  23. 
its  mixed  influence  on  morals, 

219. 
its  own  interpreter,  80,  81. 
its    possession    suggestive    of 

heresy,  74. 
its  relation  to  everyday  life  in 

19th   century  and  in  the 

Middle  Ages,  76. 
limited  range  of  its  influence, 

214-15-16. 
misapplications  of,  15,  16. 
monopoly,  38. 
not  dead,  315. 

not  supernatural,  64,  196,  302. 
of  childhood,  3,  4. 
palpable  seams  in  its  compila- 
tion overlooked,  4. 
phenomena      of,       consistent 

with  evolution,  302. 
popular  knowledge  of,  formerly 

oral,   50,  51,  54,   56  and 

note,  79,  88. 
private   reading   of,    inspiring, 

14. 
promotes   one-sided    learning, 

283. 

sealed  book  without  prophet, 

.  43-4. 
society,  23,  etc. 


Bible  texts  as  charms,  13. 
the  mother's  gift,  12. 
traditions   novel  as  compared 

with    age    of    humanity, 

172. 
theatrical  property  of  Church 

and  State,  41. 
unity  of,  artificial,  177. 
unknown  to  early  Israel,  178. 
used  as  a  defence  of  privilege 

and  wrong,  28,  29. 
various  versions  of    i6th  cen- 
tury, 48. 
will   yet  be  taken  for  what  it 

is  worth,  317,  320. 
withheld    from    laity    in    7th 

century,  109. 
Bibliolatry   a   real   danger,    167, 

273. 
better  and  worse,  176. 
brought  on  the  dark  ages,  275. 
finds  best  defence  in  pseudo- 
rationalism,  314. 
in  early  times,  270-273. 
its  amiable  side,  14,  15. 
its  darker  side,  16. 
its  ignorance,  13. 
its  morbid  terrors,  298-9. 
obstructed  science,  277. 
Bishops  and  Presbyters,  151. 
Black  death,  65. 
Blandina,  martyr,  154. 
"Blasphemy  laws,"  247,  281. 
Blind  man  of  Siloam,  222. 
Bockholdt,  John,  61. 
"Books  of  the  devil,"  271. 
British      and      Foreign      Bible 
Society,  23. 
credited  with  arrest  of  "papal 

aggression,"  27. 
reasons  for  its  success,  25,  etc. 
British  and  foreign  reforms  con- 
trasted, 58,  62. 
British   Church   and  Augustine^ 

119,  120. 
British  Museum,  thefts  from,  54. 
Brotherhood  of  man,  193. 


324 


INDEX 


Browning     on     the     failure     of 
Cliristianity,  133. 
on  the  use  of  alloy,  212. 
Bruno,  Giordano,  264. 
Budde,  Dr  Karl,  179  «. 
Bunyan,  Grace  Abounding^  214. 
Burns,  Robert,  and   the   Bible, 
I,  3. 

Caedmon,  86-88. 

Calvin,  13,  14. 

Campanella,  Thomas,  264-5. 

Campbell,  Rev.    R.    J.,   115    «., 

230  n.,  313. 
Canon  of  N.T.,  150,  152. 
Carbeas,  97,  114. 
Carlyle,  on   Cromwell's  spiritual 

troubles,  213. 
Cathari,  71. 

Catholicism,  the  widest,  175. 
Celsus,  156. 
Census   of    the   British    Empire 

and  its  religions,  32. 
Chained  Bibles,  53. 
"  Charity,"  as  brotherly  love,  249, 

250. 
Charlemagne,  89-95. 

converts  by  the  sword,  91. 

crowned  at  Rome,  92. 

desires  better  instructed  clergy, 

89. 

desires  simple  Bible  teaching, 

92. 
employment  of  Alcuin,  92. 
inclines  to  Iconoclasts,  94. 
only  half  Christian,  95. 
receives    revised    Bible    from 

Alcuin,  93, 
sets  up  Palace  school,  90. 
Chartism,  the  denial  of  its  just 
claims    credited    to     the 
Bible  Society,  27-28. 
Chaucer,  67. 
Cheapness   of  Bible,  effects   of, 

40. 
Christ,  as  the  child's  God,  7. 
"the  Eternal,''  230,  250. 


"Christian,"    and     "  Paulician," 

103. 
Christianity,  as  flower  and  fruit 
of  Judaism,  196. 
its  earliest  forms,  136. 
its  early  successes,  33. 
Christians,  primitive — 
Mr  Lecky  on,  253,  254. 
their  initiative  of  social  reform 
exaggerated,  255. 
Chronology,  incipient   study   of, 

4- 
Chrysocheir,  Paulician   General, 

114. 
Chrysostom,  John,  138-145. 

his  exhortation  to  get  Bibles, 
146. 
Church,  Catholic,  151. 

as  a  secret  society,  245. 

councils,  78,  94,  151,  232-233. 

"Fathers,"  perversity  of  their 
morals,  273. 

history,  inconsistent  with  super- 
natural revelation  or  mir- 
acle, 304-5. 

inspires  martyrdom,  153. 

its  alienation  of  national  re- 
sources, 64. 

its  attitude  towards  the  Bible, 
how  defended,  16,  55,  77. 

its  corporate  consciousness  ig- 
nored by  Protestants,  77. 

its  demoralisation  in  14th 
century,  64,  65. 

its  doctrine  of  development, 
78. 

its  early  capture  of  secular 
power,  152. 

its  worldly  wisdom  repugnant, 
64. 

mediaeval,  its  case  against  un- 
guided  reading  of  the 
Bible,  16. 

obscurantism  and  its  Nemesis, 
62. 

of  England,  its  catechism  un- 
justly criticised,  295. 


INDEX 


325 


Church,  relation  to  the  Bible,  37, 

55.  78,  155.  159. 
supernatural  powers   of,   146- 

147. 
Cibossa,  105. 
"City  of  God,"  131. 
Civilisation,  prehistoric,  216. 
Clarkson,  28. 
Classic  civilisation,  development 

of,    hampered   by   biblio- 

latry,  284,  285,  286. 
Clerical  ignorance,  89,  91. 
Clerk,  58. 

Clodd,  Edward,  67. 
Clovis,  69. 
Cnossos,  217. 
Codex  Sinaiticus,  151  «. 
Colchester,  dearth  of  Bibles  in, 

39- 

Coleridge,  187. 

Coloneia,  Bp.  of,  as  an  in- 
quisitor, 107-8. 

Commandments, — see  Ten. 

Common  people  and  Jesus,  81, 
248. 

Commonwealth,  English,  aided 
by  fusion  of  "  sacred,"  and 
secular  interests,  288. 

Constantine   of    Mananalis,    the 
first  Paulician,  99. 
martyrdom,  105. 
mission  to  Philippi,  104. 
problem  of  his  conversion,  99. 
renounces   Manichseism,    100, 
107. 

Conversion,  varieties  of,  8-n. 
among     Nonconformists,     10, 
II. 

Copernicus,  263. 

Corinthians,  Epistles  to,  almost 
certainly  St  Paul's,  249. 

Cottage  temple,  6. 

Cottar's  Saturday  Nighty  i,  3. 

Covenanters,  Scottish,  289. 

Cowper's  hymns,  187. 

Cranmer,  48. 

Creation,  story  of,  4. 


Creation,    myth    from    Babylon, 

183. 

St  Augustine  on,  130. 
Creeds,  break  up  of,  314. 
Critical    spirit    like    Browning's 
"spirt     of     fiery     acid," 
212. 
Cromwell,  O.,  makes  the  Bible  a 
charter  of  freedom,  287. 
a  solitary  case,  288. 
letter  to  Mrs  St  John,  213. 
Cromwell's,  O.,  armies,  morals  of, 

60. 
Cruelty,     spiritual,    to    children, 

8-9. 

Crusades,  their   effect  on  inter- 
course of  East  and  West, 

69. 

Culture,  meaning  of,  268. 

affected  by  all  sacred  books, 

269,  270. 
comparative  mfluence  of  pagan 
poetry  and  Bible,  270. 
Cuthbert,  85. 
Cyprian  on  Noah,  135  «. 
Cyrus,  185,  191. 

David,  184,  256. 

after  the  boy's  heart,  5. 
Davids,  Prof.  T.  W.  Rhys,  204  n. 
Day-dreams  of  the  religious  child, 

5- 
Democritus,  Epicurus,  Lucretius, 

278. 
Deuteronomic     literature,     181, 

190. 
Development  in  Church  doctrine. 

Devil,  credited  with  best  literature, 
271-2. 
popularity  of,  68. 

Devils  believing,  209. 

Dickinson,       Thomas,       house- 
painter,   16,  etc. 

Dill,  Dr,  21^  n. 

Diocletian,  edict  of,  153. 

Divine  order  universal,  242. 


326 


INDEX 


Documents  imbedded  in  Penta- 
teuch, 178-9,  195. 

Dominicans,  74,  75. 

Dorpat,  lack  of  Bibles  in  early 
19th  century,  61. 

Dutch  republic,  289-90. 

Earliest    centuries    of    Church, 

152. 
Easter  controversy,  156-7. 

probable  practice  of  Jerusalem 

Christians,  159. 
the  question  at  issue,  157. 
Easter  Sunday  not  an  anniversary 

of  the  Resurrection,   159 

and  note. 
Education,     public     elementary 

paralysed    by   bibliolatry, 

281. 
Egyptians  failed  to  indoctrinate 

Hebrews  with  craving  for 

immortality,  204-216. 
Eighteenth    century   a    time    of 

religious    depression,    40, 

41. 
Election  of  grace,  immorality  of, 

242-3. 
contrast  to  Spinoza's  doctrine, 

242-3. 
Ely  mas,  232. 
"  Enthusiasm  of  humanity,"  249, 

255- 
"Eternal  Christ,"  the,  230,  250. 

Eternal  life,  204. 
words  of,  310. 
Eternity,  men  of,  161  and  note. 
Ethelbert,  116. 
Ethiopian  eunuch,    11,    43,    79, 

209. 
Eucharist,    meaning   of,   to    the 

Catholic  Church,  77,  136. 
Eusebius,  150,  152,  153,  160. 
Eutropius  of  Constantinople,  140, 

141,  145. 
Evagrius,  138. 
Experience,  human,  as  revelation, 

176. 


Ezekiel,  paradoxical  position  of, 
189. 
modern  imitators,  189. 

Faber's  hymns,  187. 
Faith,  power  of,  210. 

noblest  meaning  of,  237-9. 
Family  worship,  i,  11. 

Bible  class,  3. 
Fascinating  obscurity,  2. 
Fetishism,  survival  of,  94-5,  114, 
127,  180,   184,   188,   189, 
195,  274,   283,  313. 
in  evolution  of  religion,  175. 
Fourth  Gospel — 

acrid    dialogues    intended    to 
enforce   writer's    doctrine 
of  Logos-Messiah,  225. 
and  Easter  controversy,  157. 
apparently  not  known  to  Poly- 
carp,  158. 
as  infant  reading,  3. 
doctrine  of  new  birth,  200. 
difference   between    its   bitter 
words  and  the  invectives 
in  Synoptics,  226  n. 
evil  effect  on  Church  morality, 

225. 
its  narratives,  221-225. 
its  residual  value  to  the  world, 

229. 
lateness  of,  206  «.,  221,  222  n. 
reminiscences  of  Judaisers,  225. 
subordinates  plain  moral  issues 

to  theosophic  lore,  229. 
supernatural     assumptions, 

225-6. 
"the  Jews"  therein,  226. 
uses  pictorial  fiction,  230. 
Fox,  George,  45-46. 
Foxe,  martyrologist,  154. 
France  and    Papacy   in    Middle 

Ages,  69. 
Franciscans,  74,  75. 
Frazer,  Dr  J.  G.,  125. 
"Free  churches,"  281. 
Freedom,  268. 


INDEX 


327 


Freedom  of  thought  shown  by 
mental   method,    not    by 
results  reached,   291. 
"Freethinkers,"  269,  290-1. 
"  Freethought "  a  cant  word,  290. 
confined  to  denial,  290-1. 
excludes   many   of  the   freest 

souls,  291. 
Spinoza   in   that   sense  not  a 
freethinker,  291. 
Free  libraries  and  morals,  53-54. 
Free  libraries  for  non-readers,  85, 

86-88. 
French  Revolution,  292. 

and   mutual  misjudgments   of 
English  and  French,  293. 
Friars,  69,  etc. 
"Friends  of  God,"  59. 

Gairdner,  Dr  James,  on  "Lollardy 
and      Reformation,"    68, 
note. 
Galatians,  Ep.  to,  251. 
Galilee,  263. 
Gardiner,  Dr  S.  M.,  60. 
Gegnesius,  108. 
Gehazi,  256. 
Geneva  Bible,  48. 
Geology  and  Bible,  280-1. 
Germany,   scarcity  of   Bibles   in 
early  19th  century,  60-1. 
Gibbon,  70,  95,  99  n.,  102,  113, 

114. 
God  and  the  child,  5. 
"a  very  present,"  177. 
evolution  of  ideas  of,  1 74-11  n. 
fatherhood  of,  130,    190,   193, 

200,  201. 
idea    of,     inevitable    issue    of 
human  evolution,  305, 306. 
influence  of  Bible  on,  174,  178. 
imperialism  of,  130. 
kingdom    of,   the   republic   of 

man,  188,  247,  261. 
"of  battles"  and   Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  220. 
God  "that  hidest  thyself,"  177. 


"God's  Englishmen,"  191. 
God's   word   written,    167,    170, 

273»3i5- 
Gorham,  Mr  Chas.  T.,  314. 
Gospel   forced   into   Old    Testa- 
ment, 19. 
Gospel  of  God's  love,  252. 
Gospels,    synoptic,    problem    of, 
149  «.,  197,  199. 
original  simplicity  of,  207-8. 
supersession    of,    by    Epistles, 

213,  214. 
the  soul  of  Christianity,  208. 
Gourd,  parable  of,  192. 
Grammar  schools,  51. 
Grave-digger  in  Hamlet,  56-7. 
Glosses,  74,  85  ;^. 
Gregory    II.,    his    ignorance    of 
Scripture,  97. 

Habakkuk,  186. 
Hades  and  Sheol,  204. 
Hagar  allegorised  by  St  Paul,  166. 
Hampton  Court  conference,  48, 

49- 
Hammurabi,  217. 
Hebrew  Scripture,  a  product  of 

devotion,  282. 
Hebrews,  Ep.  to,  150,  252. 
Hebrews  and  'Abiri,  303  n. 
Hell,  terrors  of,  10. 
Henotheism,  180,  181,  183,  193, 

214. 
Henry  VIIL,  49-50. 
Heuristic  system  in  7th  century, 

no. 
Hilarius  of  Aries,  69. 
I  Hilda,  Abbess  of  Whitby,  87. 
;  Historic   conscience   needed    in 
I  Bible  reading,  166,  167. 

\  Holiness,  law  of,  313. 
'  Holland,  poverty  in  bibles  in  early 
19th  century,  161. 
Huguenots,  290. 
Humanity   as   a   whole   scarcely 
touched   by   Bible,    214- 
i5»  217- 


328 


INDEX 


Humanity    immeasurably    older 
than  Bible,   172. 
the  new,  252. 

Humanistic   element    in    Refor- 
mation, 56. 

"  Hymn-book  of  second  temple," 
42,  257. 

Hymns  and  poetry,  187. 

lago  and  "  holy  writ,"  54. 

"  I  AM,"  a  very  late  name  of  God, 

183. 
Iconoclasts,  94,  95. 
Ignatius  of  Antioch,  260. 
Immortality,    craving    for,    137, 

203,  204. 
Imperial  census,  32. 
InfalUble    Book,  substitution  of, 

for  infallible  Church,  293. 
Infantine  mysticism,  3. 
''Infidel,"  281. 
Infinite,  kinship  with,  230. 
Innocent  III.,  74. 
Inquisition,  74. 
Inspiration,  test  of,  174-5. 
Irenseus  and  tradition,  156-8. 

his  follies,  276. 
Isaac,  sacrifice  of,  309. 
Isaiah,  on  religion  and  ritual,  187, 

188. 
Israel,    mission    of,     188,     192, 

193. 

Jacob,  5,  55. 

Jahweh,  possibly  a  Kenite  god, 

179  n. 
James  I.  and  Bible,  44. 
James,  St,  Epistle  of,  150,  209, 

2+3- 
supposed    brother    of    Jesus, 

244,  note. 
Jashar,  Book  of,  178,  195. 
Jeremiah,  163,  182. 
Jerusalem,  council  at,  232-3. 
"Jesu"  in  Shakespeare,  57. 
Jesus,  a   characteristic  scene  on 

the  Galilean  hills,  248. 


Jesus,  a  man  of  his  time  as  well 
as  of  eternity,  161  and 
note. 

a  true  socialist,  247-9. 

contradicts  the  traditions  and 
letter  of  O.T.,  163. 

his  demand  for  faith,  209-10. 

his  doctrine  of  the  kingdom, 
203. 

his  unsectarian  humanity,  202. 

made      no      assumption      of 
personal  authority,  164. 

makes  light  of  the  fourth  com- 
mandment, 165. 

on  the  Father,  201,  202-3. 

why  the  common  people  heard 
him  gladly,  164,  165. 
Jews,  persecution  of,  in  name  of 

Christ,  286. 
John  of  Gaunt  (Shakespeare's), 

6s- 

John,  St, — see  Fourth  Gospel. 

Epp.  21^3. 

the  Divine,  250. 
Jonah,  192. 

author's     advanced     outlook, 

193- 
Joseph,  story  of,  184,  190,  294. 
Jotbath,    spiritual    interpretation 

of,  18. 
Jowett's  advice,  21. 

its     present     impracticability, 

22 
Jude,  St,  Epistle  of,  150. 
Judges,  Book  of.  220. 
Justin  Martyr  and    the  Gospels, 

160  n.,  276. 
Justus,  the  Paulician  Judas,  105, 

107. 
his  dispute  with  Symeon  as  to 

Col.  i.  16,  107. 

Keller,  Helen,  21. 
Kenites,  179  ?i. 
Kepler,  211,  264. 
Kingdom  of  God,  the  Republic 
of  man,  188. 


INDEX 


329 


Kirk,  Scottish,  41,  42. 
Knox,  John,  13,  51,  235. 
Koran,  2,  309. 

Land  Law  Reform,  311  note. 

Langland,  67,  88. 

Law,    human   and   Bible,  284-5 

and  note. 
Lecky,      history     of     European 

morals,  254. 
on   primitive    Christian    love, 

253- 
on     results    of    salvation     by 

belief,  244. 
Lee,     Sidney,     on    Shakespeare 

and  Bible,  56  n. 
Leo,  the  Isaurian,  95,  100. 
Libanius,  138. 
Lithuania,  scarcity  of  Bibles  in, 

60. 
Logos,    Platonic,    Philonic,    and 

"Johannine,"  229. 
LoUardism,  late  survival  of,  51, 

52,  287. 
"  Lord's  anointed,"  296. 
Love,  brotherly,  in   the  Pauline 

Epistles,  250,  251. 
apparent  limitation  of,  251-2. 
Lucretius,  278  and  note. 
Luther,  his  version,  59,  60. 
as  reformer,  64,  66,  102. 
"  Lyons,  poor  men  of,"  73,  75. 

Maccabees,  reactionary,  194, 

Madagascar,  34  n. 

Magic,  278. 

Man,  exaggeration  of  his  place  in 
the  universe,  305. 

Mananalis,  99. 

Manichaeism  in  Provence,  75. 
of  Paulicians,  104. 
Puritans  had  more  of  it  than 
they  knew,  272. 

Manichasans,  70  n. 

Martyrs  in   the   nineteenth  cen- 
tury, 15. 

Materialism,  unreal,  230. 


Matthias  of  Miinster,  61. 
Methodism,  40. 
Men  of  eternity,  161  and  note. 
Messiah,  suffering,  196. 
Milman,    on   conversion    of  the 

Goths,  121. 
Miracle  plays,  67. 
Mohammedan  monotheism,  180, 

185. 

absence  of  scope   for   expan- 
sion, 174. 
failure  to  realise    the  ideal  of 
sex,  175 
Monica,  127. 

her  paganism,  127. 
submission  to  church  authority, 
127. 
Monopoly  of  Bible  printing,  38-9. 
Monotheism,    Jewish,    partly    of 
political     origin,     184-5, 
190-1. 
not  final,  186,  187. 
Moral  progress  not  suggestive  of 

miracle,  304. 
Morals    disregarded   by    Church 
Fathers  where  Bible  was 
concerned,  273. 
not  inseparable   from  miracu- 
lous revelation,   219  and 
note, 
ordinary  meaning  of,  218. 
religious  sanction  of,  and  note, 
218. 
"  Morality    touched    with    emo- 
tion,"   all     depends     on 
the    source    of    emotion, 
172-3. 
Moses,  anthropomorphic,  183. 

and  Pharaoh,  4. 
-Mosheim,  71  «. 
"  Mother  of  God  "  according  to 

Paulicians,  102. 
Mysteries,  Eleusinian  and  later, 
204. 
Pagan  and  Christianity,  137. 
Mysterienwesen,   das    antike,    by 
Gustav  Aurich,  137  n. 


330 


INDEX 


Mystics,  59. 

Mysticism,    pious    pre-Christian, 

205. 
Mythology,  pagan,    its   hold    on 

the     people      contrasted 

with  that  of  the  Jews  and 

Christians,  270. 

Nathan,  184. 

Neighbour's  landmark,  296. 

Nemesis  of  Fa  tth,  296. 

subject   of    the    book    a   real 
infidel,  297. 
New  birth  in  the  fourth  Gospel, 

200. 
"  New  Theology,"  303. 
Nicomedia,  edict  of,  153. 
Nineteenth    century    the    Bible 
age,  34. 
exceptional,  35. 
Bible's  apotheosis,  37. 
Nineveh,  193. 

Oaths  sanctioned  by  Moses,  but 

denounced  by  Jesus,  163. 

Old  Testament,  curious  uses  of, 

18,  19,  81. 

canon  of,  194. 

from  Pantheist's  point  of  view, 

195. 
in  New  Testament  times,  160, 

161. 
mixed  morals  of,  220,  221. 
not  denied  by  Paulicians,  iii. 
Oral  Gospel,  81. 
Origen,  155,  276. 
Ormulum,  86,  88. 
"  Orthodoxy,"  its  immoral  shifts, 
265-6. 

Pagan  myths  analogous  to  those 

of  Bible,  303, 
Papias,  47,  76. 

Paralysed  man  at  Bethesda,  226. 
St  Augustine  and  Chrysostom, 

226-8. 
Parentalia,  127. 


Parker,  Archbishop,  48. 
Patriarchs,  twelve,  testaments  of, 

194. 
Paul,  an  obscure  Paulician,  108. 
Paul,  St,  almost  certainly  author 
of    Epistles    to    Corinthi- 
ans, 249. 

and  Barnabas,  233. 

and  Elymas,  232. 

and  Stephen,  167. 

anticipates  Spinoza,  198. 

apostle  of  better  things  than 
behef,  250. 

at  Athens,  118. 

difference  between  his  treat- 
ment of  Old  Testament 
and  that  of  Jesus,  165, 
211-12. 

fascination  of  his  character, 
231. 

first  Christian  master  of  non- 
natural  interpretation, 
168-9. 

first  Christian  writer  of  author- 
ity, 197. 

followed  by  St  Augustine  and 
many  others,  169. 

Genesis  of  his  special  form  of 
Christianity,  167. 

his  adaptation  of  Deut.xxx.  12, 
80-1. 

his  epistles,  worth  of,  236,249. 

his  indifference  to  alleged 
Jerusalem  "decree,"  233. 

his  limitations,  115. 

his  moral  ideals  marred  by 
theosophy,  208-9. 

his  occasional  conformity,  235. 
condemned  by  John  Knox, 

235- 
his  rabbinism,  i66,  167. 
his  spirited  conduct  at  Philippi, 

234. 
his  vision,  the  test  of  what  is 

meant  by  "  Resurrection," 

196-7. 
misplaced  ingenuity,  166. 


INDEX 


331 


Paul,  St,  mystical  misinterpreta- 
tions, 165-6. 
on  Passover,  158. 
on  things  offered  to  idols,  233. 
owned    no    ecclesiastical    au- 
thority over  himself,  118. 
Pauline  indifference  to  political 

issues,  295-6. 
puzzled    by    Jewish    unbelief, 

240-1. 
re-maker  of  Christianity,  203. 
Paulicians,  70,  97-115. 

accused  of  impersonation,  103. 
adoption  of  names  of  St.  Paul's 

followers,  102. 
alleged  Manichaeism   of,   107, 

112,  113,  202. 
deported  to  Thrace,  114. 
Gegnesius,  100,  108  and  note, 
illustratepowerof  N.T.,99, 114. 
make  their  way  westward,  114. 
martyrdoms,  105,  107. 
Old  Testament  used  by,  in. 
origin  of  name,  102. 
Paul,  an  obscure  leader  of,  108. 
perhaps  earliest  asserters  of  the 
supreme  authority  of  N.T. 
as  against  the  Church,  1 60. 
precursors  of  Reformation,  113. 
Protestant  idea  of,  115. 
question  of  their  morals,  104. 
Sergius,  108,  113  n. 

his  probable  methods,  1 1 1- 
112. 
their  persistency,  106. 
their  prevarications,  loi,  etc. 
Theodore,  108  and  note, 
violence   of   their   opponents, 
103  and  note. 
Peasant  revolt  in  Germany,  60, 
Nemesis   on    Church    obscur- 
antism, 62. 
"Peoples   of    the    Book,"    their 

advantages,  282,  283. 
Persecution  by  Christians,  246. 
by  Pagans,  244. 
recent,  300. 


Persecution,    Pagan,    subject    of 

condemnation  not  belief, 

but  practice,  244-6. 

their  attitude  like  that  of  O. 

Cromwell    to    Catholics, 

244-5- 
Christian,  condemnation  not  of 

practice  but  belief,  246. 
Peter,  St,  condemned  by  St  Paul, 

236. 
on  caution  in  use  of  Scripture, 

79- 
Petrus  Siculus,  98,  in. 
Philemon,  Epistle  to,  251. 
PhiUp   the   Evangelist,   his    test 

for  baptism,  209. 
Photius,  98  and  note,   105,   106, 

113  n. 
Piers  Flow majt,  67,  210,  211. 
Pilgrim's  Progress^  9?  u. 
Pindar  and  mysteries,  205. 
Pisgah,  a  rhapsody,  20. 
Plan  of  salvation,  8,  11,  115,  242, 

279. 
Polycarp,  157,  158,  159,  260. 
Polycrates,  Bp.  of  Ephesus,  his 

use  of  Scripture,  156  n. 
Popular    blindness    to    Biblical 

difficulties,  4. 
Presbyters  and  bishops,  151. 
Priest  father,  i,  12,  41. 
Priests    in    Middle    Ages    often 

illiterate,  71. 
Primacy,  Papal,  78. 
Primitive  Church  and  Protestant- 
ism, 148,  etc. 
Property  and  Bible,  294,  295. 
Prophets,    office   of,    43-4,    64- 

183. 
what  inspired  them,  183,  189, 

190. 
Protestant  inconsistency  in  judg- 
ing the  Catholic  Church, 

78. 
Martyrs  and  Bible,  154- 
view  of  the  Bible,  80,  147,  148, 

155,  159- 


332 


INDEX 


Prothero,  Rowland  E.,  on   i8th 
century,  41. 
on  Psalms,  20. 
Psalms,  popular  use  of,  42. 

their  exaltation  of  truth,  256-7. 
Pulpit  rhetoric,  234-5. 
Puritanism,  possible  exaggeration 
of  its  influence    in    17th 
century,  44. 

Quakers  and  Bible,  44-5. 
Quibbling,  sacred,  241. 

Radicals,  socialists,  and  infidels. 

Railway  station  texts,  13. 
Rationalism,  pseudo-,  167,  314. 
"Reader,"  an  ecclesiastical  office, 

139- 

Reading  in  past  time  the  privi- 
lege of  a  few,  50. 

Regeneration, — see  Baptism. 

"Reformation,"  how  far  human- 
istic, 56. 
especially  in  England,  58,  88. 

Religion  as  loyalty  to  the  whole, 

as     "  morality    touched    with 

emotion,"  172. 
dishonoured     by     insincerity, 

265-7. 
identified  with  Bible,  171. 
its  debt  to  science,  262. 
moral  connotations  of  gradual 

development  of,  182,  186, 

187,  188. 
not  unreal  because  imperfect, 

'74- 
Religious     statistics     of    British 

empire,  32. 
Republic  of  man  and  kingdom 

of  God,  188. 
Resurrection,  196,  206. 
Revelation,  Book  of,  150. 
Revelation,    difference    between 

primitive      and     modern 

conception  of,  150. 


Reville,  Jean,  221,  291. 
"  Revival  "  scenes,  10. 
Romans,  Epistle  to,  argument  of, 

237,  etc. 
repulsiveness  of  its  treatment 

of  "election,"  241. 
"Rupert's  drops,"  279. 

Sabbath  observance  condemned 
in   N.T.,   165,    222,    224, 
226. 
Sacramentalism,  135-6-7. 
"Sacred"    and    "secular,"    un- 
hallowed divorce  between, 
,  272-3,  308. 
Salvation  Army,  254. 
Salvation   by  faith,  demoralising 
forms  of,  239-40. 
degraded    into    salvation    by 
belief,  240,  243,  279,  283, 
286. 
effects    on    pubHc   elementary 

education,  281. 
Mr  Lecky  on  the  results,  244. 
this  corruption  condemned  in 

N.T.,  243. 
perhaps  by  2  Peter,  244. 
Samaritan  woman,  221-2. 
Samosata,  99. 
Sanhedrim,  194. 
Sapphira,  her  death  as  "act  of 

God,"  231  note. 
Savoy,  69. 

Science,  its  gift  to  religion,  262. 
Sciolism  and  irreverence,  35-6. 
Scottish  Kirk,  41. 
Scribes    and   Pharisees,  possibly 
exaggerated     notions     of 
their  wickedness,  202. 
Seams,    palpable,   in    joining    of 

Biblical  documents,  4. 
"Seed,"    as    expounded    by   St 

Paul,  166. 
Sergius      Sychicus,     a      leading 
Paulician,  108. 
his  dangerous  virtues,  in. 
his  probable  methods,  112. 


INDEX 


333 


Sergius       Tychicus,       probably 

slandered     by      Photius, 

113  n, 
"Shaftesbury,  the   good    Lord," 

28. 
Shakespeare  and  Bible,  54-58. 
Sheol  and  Hades,  204. 
Shorthand    reports    of    sermons 

in  4th  century,  143  n. 
Shylock  and  Jacob,  55. 
"Simple  Bible  religion,"  entirely 

modern,  138,  144,  150. 
Sin,  its   fetishistic  connotations, 

312-13. 
Sinaitic  Codex,  151  «. 
Sirach,  Book  of,  194. 
Slavery    and    Christianity,    251, 

Socialism,  261  «.,  262,  319  and 
note. 

Socrates,  259,  260,  277. 

Solomon,  6. 

Songs,  earliest  sacred,  178. 

Sophia,  St,  Church  of,  scene  in, 
141,  147. 

Sortes  bibliccE,  128. 

*'  Sorus,"  the  Paulician  martyr's 
cairn,  105. 

South  Sea  Islands,  34  n. 

Spade  work  of  19th  century,  and 
its  effect  on  belief,  171. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  173,  306. 
and  Spinoza,  173. 

Spinoza  and  the  Bible,  168,  173, 
181,  185,  311,  312,  318. 
coincidence  with  St  Paul,  198. 
his  recommendation  of  me- 
morised maxims,  316, 
bearing  on  value  of  Bible, 
316. 

Spiritual  day-dreams,  5. 

"Sprinkled   with   the    blood    of 
Jesus,"  310. 

Spurgeon,  145. 

Stephen,  167. 

Sternhold  and  Hopkins,  42. 

Subliminal  self,  170,  189. 


Sumerian  records,  217. 
Sunderland,     shipping     without 

Bibles    in    19th    century, 

39- 
Symeon,  judge  and  convert,  105, 

106. 
as  Titus,  107. 
martyrdom,  107. 
Synoptic   Gospels,  their    charm, 

221. 

Tate  and  Brady,  42. 

Tauler,  59  and  note. 

Tel  el  Amarna  letters,  303. 

Ten    Commandments,    12,    225, 

.311.319- 
forbid   the    sculptor's   noblest 

art,  83  «. 
Tennyson's  In  Memortam^   187, 

299. 
Tephrice,  97,  114. 
Teutonic  conversion,  121. 
Teutons   adopt    Christ   as   their 

fighting  god,  121. 
Theologica  Germanica,  59. 
Theology,  old  and  new,  312-13. 
Timothy  (Paulician),  102,  103. 
Tisserands,  71. 
Titus  (Paulician),  102,  103. 
Toleration  under  Roman  empire, 

245. 
difficult     of     application     to 

Christianity,  245. 
limited  notions  of,  quoted  by 

J.  S.  Mill,  300. 
Tolk,  lege!  128. 
Toulouse,  Council  of,  63  «.,  74, 

82,  84. 
Tradition,    preference    of,    early 

Church  for,  156. 
Tychicus  (Paulician),  102,  103. 
Tyndale,  48,  51. 

Ulphilas,  91,  121. 
Understanding  and  worship,  3. 
Universe,  its  true  perfection,  305, 
note. 


334 


INDEX 


"Unknown     God,"    allusion     a 

rhetorical  artifice,  234. 
Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  184. 
Uriah,  184. 

Vagaries  of  religion,  29. 

Vatican  Codex,  151  «. 

Vaudois,  71. 

Vedas,  2,  217. 

Veracity,    255,    259,    261,    263, 

319- 
little  regarded  in  earlier  O.T., 

256. 
revived  in  Psalms,  256,  257. 
revival  in  the  present  day,  267. 
Vernacular  versions,  difficulty  of, 

91. 
Victor,  Bp.  of  Rome,  156-7. 
Vision  of  Moses,  183. 
Vulgate,  91. 

Waldenses,  70. 

their  use  of  the  Bible,  72. 
Waldo,  Peter,  72. 

his  Bible,  73. 
Wars  of  the  Lord,  Book  of,  178, 

195. 
Watts's  hymns,  187. 


"Way-faring  men,"  in  Isaiah,  80. 
Wesley  and  Whitefield,  40,  43. 
Wesley's  hymns,  187. 
Whittingham,  William,   and   the 

Geneva  Bible,  48. 
Wilberforce,  28. 
"  Will  to  believe,"  247. 
Wimborne  Minster,  its   chained 

library,  53  «. 
"Wisdom  of  Solomon,"  194. 
Witchcraft,  278. 
"  Without  note  or  comment,"  26, 

27  n.,  30,  32. 
Wordsworth,  187. 
Wooton  Wawen,  chained  books, 

53  «• 
"Wrath  to  come,"  200. 
Wycliffe,  48,  59,  63,  64,  65,  66, 

67,  88,  210. 
Wycliffite  heroism,  63. 
motives  of,  64. 

Zend  Avesta,  2. 

Zeno,  Bp.  of  Antioch,  139. 

Zeus   as    "father    of   gods   and 

men,"  201. 
Zoroastrian  "two  principles"  and 

Manichaeism,  107. 


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